For the expansion of YouTube’s campus in San Bruno, California, 2x4 created a unique spatial identity to activate YouTube’s brand values across a range of building scales and typologies. The spatial strategy centered on brightly patterned, color-coded vertical circulation corridors to establish mental mapping and intuitive navigation across the campus. Referencing YouTube’s central role in sharing culture, we created a playful brand language based in the concept of memes – signifiers that spread and evolve through collective commentary, imitation, and reinterpretation – to distinguish and animate both signage and spaces, adding legibility, storytelling and identity to the user experience.
Bold, colored patterns of local flora and fauna shifting in scale from floor-to-floor clarify stacks and levels. Interplay between large-scale images legible at a distance and small scale “easter eggs” discoverable within corridors and stairwells animate passage. Icons and identification iterate whimsically on common pictogram tropes. The YouTube branded wayfinding creates a vibrant workspace and supports employees movement throughout the campus.
