Hello friends of Airbnb Design! We’ve had fun posting our musings, motivations, and work over the past several years. We hope some of it has resonated with you. 2022 finds us heads down on some exciting new projects, so we’ve decided to take a little break from posting here and on Instagram. If you’re interested in a career in Airbnb Design, please visit Careers at Airbnb. Take care everyone ..read more

When I began my Design career, the barriers to entry were great. Education was expensive, portfolios required experience, and access to knowledge was inequitable. While some of these hurdles have lessened — it’s still hard to grow in your practice once you work, because the value of professional development is not widely understood. This is precisely why after years of practicing as a Designer, I made the transition to Educator; I saw an opportunity to positively influence and make systematic changes to adult education. Learning at work matters Look around and you’ll see that learning as a dis ..read more

“Leadership” is a tricky notion, especially in a business context. Catch your average creative professional in a moment of candor and don’t be surprised if they tell you that “leadership” feels like a vague idea hackneyed by business and self-help books. A term best left in quotes. What’s worse, during performance reviews, we’re asked to quantify leadership—a thing that feels inherently qualitative. It’s a recipe for skepticism and reluctant assent. Leadership is also often talked about as a kind of character trait rather than a set of behaviors, which can box out people who don’t think of the ..read more

It’s been a long year since the pandemic started. In the US, hope is emerging with a vaccine finally on the horizon. For healthcare workers, however, fighting on the front lines for such an extended period of time has been challenging. In a paper titled “Provider Burnout and Fatigue During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons Learned From a High-Volume Intensive Care Unit,” researchers observing Houston Methodist Hospital saw this firsthand: “The novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in an overall surge in new cases of depression and anxiety and an exacerbation of existing ..read more

In the spring of 2020, a global pandemic quickly changed the rules for how we live, work, relax, and travel. Airbnb, like many businesses, had to pivot its priorities to meet the needs of travelers and hosts who had a new set of behaviors and constraints. I experienced this turning point when we kicked off a project to help hosts understand how to remain competitive during the pandemic, and to help keep their guests safe. A cleaning protocol was born. Not only was this work critical for the health and safety of our community, but host livelihoods – and our business –depended on it. At Airbnb ..read more

Our free digital toolkit for freelance illustrators ..read more

Explore our new film series on overcoming creative adversity ..read more

Upon moving to the United States from Japan at the age of six, I couldn’t speak a word of English. Kids bullied me, and strangers often scoffed at my parents’ imperfect grammar and pronunciation. This experience taught me the feeling of being “othered” because of what we look like, or how we speak. But it also helped shape the researcher I am today. My passion lies in ensuring I represent the voices of users who are often marginalized throughout our product cycles. On the Anti-Discrimination and In-Home Accessibility teams, I get to do exactly that. The Anti-discrimination team is dedicated to ..read more

Fast facts: Airbnb consumer behavior has shifted and inspired product changes Frontline Stays, Monthly Stays, and Online Experiences were launched Lessons were learned about evolving product while being more nimble Community and connection are central to the Airbnb brand, and being mission-driven means that we design for a world where social inclusion and trust is at the heart of everything we do. This belief in the power of belonging drives our product innovation and touches every aspect of the campaigns we ship to a world of hosts and travelers in 220 countries. Although barriers to belong ..read more

Being an illustrator isn’t always easy. There are those tricky client expectations that keep you up at night. The process headaches, the timeline fails. After working with hundreds of illustrators on six continents, we’ve witnessed the challenges you face everyday. That’s why the Airbnb Illustration team is hard at work on a project—made for illustrators, by illustrators. Want your voice to be heard? Simply take a few minutes to contribute to our survey so you can shape how we approach the project from the ground-up.   ..read more