Quid

Emily Hagopian

• Architects

In the tech world there is a growing awareness that the digital miracles we see every day are the product of insights first recorded in dusty books. Quid is a company that has long acknowledged digital’s debt to analog and in fact has built its data analytics on recognition of that connection. Quid is an AI startup in San Francisco and has the leading web product for visualizing written content. Quid was expanding in 2018 and needed a new home. Quid’s Founder & CEO, Bob Goodson, enlisted Dav Studio to design their new office. Dav Studio was founded by Kroeun Dav, a local designer with over a decade of experience, who worked with them on their award-winning 2010 office, and was familiar with their product. Dav Studio’s design for Quid’s San Francisco office celebrates the ongoing progression of knowledge with a 21st century space framed in accents drawn from the world of print. Quid is dedicated to break-throughs in how we "read" content. This concept was translated in Quid’s elevator lobby. Dav Studio sourced an old edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and used the pages as wallpaper, leading every guest to essentially enter Quid through a room of nothing but tens of thousands of words—a nod to founder Bob Goodson’s alma mater. Dav Studio hid the entry for the word "Quid" in the lobby as something for guests to seek. Spoiler: the primary definition of Quid is the truth of a thing. Dav Studio approached a local Berkeley print press and sourced the linen material used on book covers and covered the reception walls.

photo_credit Emily Hagopian — Emily Hagopian

Guests can touch the walls and are reminded of the caress of a good book. Throughout the office Dav Studio and Quid together stocked bookshelves—often strictly metaphoric in a modern workplace— with real books of real interest to the company’s employees. Dav Studio selected a color palette that reflects the Quid product itself. Quid detects topics and colors each differently. So each room has a color and as you move through the space it reflects the movement through the software itself. Network graphics were brought into select places as further echoes of the product. Dav Studio and Quid created a "cafe" in which everyone can eat, drink and work, and called it "Hopscotch Cafe" (in the spirit of having fun with numbers). Hopscotch also respects the creativity that can flow in cafe environments. Quid aspired to a space that is both highly functional from their 100+ person team to work and create, inspirational for clients and guests, and deeply reinforces the product and brand values that Quid follows. The larger theme here is not print, but continuity—the way every generation of knowledge seekers builds on the achievements of generations before. Dav Studio uses the vernacular of office design today as the starting point for a warmer, more tactile working experience at Quid. Giving every space its own connection to a larger meaning—through cultural reference or individual choice—Dav’s design turns a tech office into a personal habitat.