Context

Airbnb’s internal security team commissioned several connected kinds of work: an identity for its champions program and central visuals for recurring awareness campaigns.

My role

I developed concepts, visual designs and illustrations, working with Airbnb’s security and communications teams and with design direction from Arseni Harkunou at StillHuman.

The Security Champions identity needed to represent the program and its different levels, work across documents, slides, merchandise and internal tools, and be straightforward to apply. The brief also called for an alternative to familiar locks-and-shields imagery.

I proposed chess as a way to express strategy and progression. Its pieces offered a structure for representing different levels within one connected visual system.

I explored a chessboard coat of arms and a castle guarded by chess-inspired characters. The castle direction was selected for development, giving the program both a setting and a family of figures to build on.

I developed illustrations for the program’s stages and explored different color treatments within Airbnb’s palette. The client selected a lighter version, which became the basis for the set.

I also designed a standalone program logo around the top-level mage character, connecting the overall identity with the progression represented in the illustrations.

Hackerville campaigns

For the annual Hackerville campaigns, I developed central illustrations that could carry across posters, merchandise, slides and screens. Visual metaphors gave each security topic a setting and a story that could be explored in one image.

Remote edition

A settlement in deep space expressed remote connection and the ability to work from anywhere.

Escher city edition

A layered, surreal city represented the complexity of digital infrastructure and access.

Underwater edition

Phishing boats, data octopuses and hidden fortresses turned security themes into details within an underwater world.

AI edition

A split-view composition contrasted the visible surface of AI with the abstract infrastructure underneath.

The delivered work combined a reusable program identity with campaign artwork adapted across internal communications and physical materials. It shows how I connect concept development and illustration with the practical requirements of a recurring program.

• Denis Sazhin — visual design, concept, and illustration
• Arseni Harkunou | StillHuman — design direction