GIPHY is the New York-based creative brains behind the GIFs that are shared by millions of social media users on a daily basis. Formed in 2013, the online platform now employs over 100 people who design and create the quirky animations. When it moved to its new headquarters of over 12,000 square feet in Manhattan, it wanted to construct a creative environment that reflected its fun brand personality.
The renovated industrial space in the city’s meat-packing district is organized in zones, with GIPHY Park at the heart. The tightly packed work stations in the park flank a central communal space used for company meetings, presentations and even celebrity performances. GIPHY Café features a coffee bar, employee breakout space and dining area. And GIPHY Basement is a collaborative meeting and gaming area.
Ventresca Design was hired to develop a lighting strategy that would not only complement the brand but help to create and distinguish the three different zones.
“It’s always a fun challenge when you have an office environment where casual, communal spaces merge with more traditional working areas. It’s an opportunity to have a little fun and we look to distinguish each area with the appropriate lighting treatments to complement the intended task and desired mood,” said Chris Ventresca, principal at Ventresca Design.
The park has more general, ambient lighting for the workspaces, the café has a warmer hospitality feel, and the basement is accented with high contrast colorful lighting.
Ventresca said that GIPHY Park required overall illumination that was appropriate for a more traditional working area, but he also sought something that was more playful. The open-gridded ceiling was quite geometric in its design, so he chose fixtures that were “off-grid” in a way to break up that geometry.
Eureka Lighting’s Switch luminaire fit the bill. A total of twenty-one were installed throughout the Park area. The black suspended fixtures are a cross between functional and decorative. Each of the three arms conceals a custom-designed LED module that seems to float in its housing, yet the Switch fixture provides efficient, fully diffused illumination to the workspaces below.
“Switch has dynamic arms that you can play with,” said Ventresca. “We were able to change the positions and angles to create something right above eye level that broke up the gridded ceiling.”