Yes that’s right! The Orangeblowfish was appointed by LinkedIn to complete the environmental graphic design works for their Shanghai office.
To welcome the growing LinkedIn team in Shanghai, the company snagged a new 1,800-square-meter office space in Shanghai’s commercial landmark IAPM. The Orangeblowfish was assigned to work on planning, creating and designing environmental artwork to build an inspiring space for better creativity and communication, with the expertise of M Moser’s interior design which brings a rejuvenating indoor space experience.
The Orangeblowfish always believes that imaginative works of art and environmental spaces stimulate creativity. In the past few years, we’ve crafted unforgettable office space experiences for companies such as Google, Alipay, Mindshare, the Yiqiao Bridge+ co-working space and more.
Creativity, Our Common Belief
As you know, The Orangeblowfish leverages art, storytelling, space and technology to amplify our client’s brands. We design office spaces to help stimulate creative thinking and communication, promote community building, and help employees find a sense of belonging. A quick search in the internet reveals that LinkedIn always tops the charts for the most creative working spaces. LinkedIn’s Workplace Design Laboratory in Silicon Valley is a dedicated environment for such experimentation and research. So it was a perfect match for LinkedIn and The Orangeblowfish to collaborate with each other, and bring those values to life with the working space.
Park, Shanghai’s past and future
Incorporating local culture and elements into every office space in the world is a mission that LinkedIn focuses on. Looking down from the 30th floor of Shanghai IAPM, the lush greenery and low Shikumen residential buildings are a visual oasis that attracts attention. At the same time, the perspective of high-rise buildings also makes us realize that there is a lack of community in the city. A public space where groups can gather for activities subtly mirrors the lush greenery outside the window, revoking the social atmosphere of the old “park life” over the city.
Featured Installations
Inbug — The LinkedIn Logo 
Borrowing the traditional Chinese pane pattern, the entire metal suspension device shows the oriental charm of the “round sky, square earth”, which is a spin on the LinkedIn logo you are familiar with.
Skyline Drapery
Fan Ceiling
The fan dance in the park is also a sight not to be missed in Shanghai! Our design partners at M Moser found inspiration and incorporated fan elements into the ceiling, combined with light bubble lights, to bring a stunning visual experience above the front desk.
CONNECT Screen
Behind this huge carved wooden screen, a high table area is hidden, where people can quickly brainstorm and communicate simply and without barriers. Pssst…we hid surprise: the word “CONNECT” is hidden in the hollow wood carving, representing the basic foundation of the LinkedIn community.TOGETHER Wall
This glass wall painting is the entrance to an independent office. Among the branches and leaves of white magnolia that symbolize Shanghai, the word “Together” handwritten by the artist blooms in a transparent form.
Where’s Wally – People’s Park edition
“Zen Fong Liang”
We used the Shanghainese phrase Zen Fong Liang – enjoy the cool air and have chat with friend – to further highlight the need to relax and enjoy the environment even at work as this is where ideas and collaborations can be created! Lettering and rippled water effects are used to create a water-inspired art piece.
Key Meeting Rooms
Bird Watch, Tai Chi, Morning Run, Caligraphy… every aspect of Shanghai’s park life is revealed from all the subtleties. At the same time, the names of these paintings also correspond to the names of each meeting room.
Scarf Walls
From some fieldwork in People’s Park, we collected the citizens’ rich daily entertainment activities and condensed them into colorful silk scarf scroll paintings: the date corner, Dou Di Zhu card games, calligraphy masters, merry-go-rounds, and of course dancing cha cha cha…
Q&A with Siu Tang
How do you think design boosts creativity in the workplace? Our company has many years of experience in Environmental Graphic Design (EGD), from working with the likes of Google, Alipay, Mindshare, to the co-working spaces such as Bridge+ and so forth. We started off in “graffiti” and “street art”, but in recent years, the emergence of WeWork’s business has educated the market the importance of EGD. Nowadays, a fun office space is no longer the privilege of just technology giants. Startups and solopreneurs, and freelancers have the opportunity for enjoy a better office experience through community collaboration. Therefore, people are starting to ask themselves: how does your office design affect your daily work? In a nutshell, a well-designed environment encourages people to create together and promotes communication.
How do you balance the design so that the environment is interesting but not distracting? Our approach to the LinkedIn Shanghai office was “interesting but mature”, because interesting concepts are not necessarily achieved by bright and in-your-face colors. We discussed this with M Moser, and they helped us find a harmonious color scheme with rattan elements, green plants, carpets, bricks and other details to give the entire space a sense of balance. We always try our best to avoid the old clichés about Shanghai (Shikumen, Xiaolongbao, Oriental Pearl), by burying clues that await for visitors to discover it themselves.
What was the biggest challenge on this project? The LinkedIn project coincided with the covid-19 pandemic and many material samples were delayed. However, we were very lucky that the LinkedIn team had faith and trust us, as well as the end result.