Influenster installed photo-friendly elements before opening its New York office, including this James Goldcrown mural. PHOTO: INFLUENSTER
In pursuit of younger workers, companies have spent the past decade adding perks like craft beer on tap or a pool table that employees can lounge around. Now they want to make sure people outside the office know about all the fun.
So, more companies—particularly image-conscious digital brands—are designing their offices with playful art that employees and clients can photograph and post on social media. The idea: to make their brand look hip to job seekers and generally liven up their image, as well as try to spark enthusiasm and creativity among employees.
In a redesign of its San Jose, Calif., headquarters about a year ago, Adobe Systems Inc. ADBE -0.08% added a number of interactive art spaces, including a room built to look like an upside-down office where employees and visitors can pose, in an effort to show off the company’s culture.
It also has an artwork with an image of a pig jumping out of a frame—created with the company’s Photoshop software—and some of its rooms are decorated as “time capsules” to represent milestone years for the program. For example, the 1990 room has a working 1990 version of Photoshop on a computer and “1990” written with cassette tape on the wall.
Eric Kline, director of global workplace experience at Adobe, ends tours of the company in the upside-down room. “Some people will do handstands, some will do a meditation pose,” he says. “And we say, ‘Hey, if you had a really great time, hashtag ‘adobelife.’ ” When people see those kinds of photos on social media, they’re “talking about Adobe as a company, but also about Adobe internally and our culture and what it’s about.”