Wieden+Kennedy London had artists create portraits of its 200+ employees for striking office installation

Creativity is the name of the game in adland, and while global agencies’ in-house teams regularly churn out some of the world’s most compelling work, Wieden+Kennedy London recently enlisted a bit of outside help to develop a new visual display that’s rolling out in its very own office.

Titled “New Faces,” the agency’s latest undertaking is a colorful hodgepodge of more than 200 distinct portraits that capture each of the agency’s London-based employees.

“With ‘New Faces,’ we wanted to reflect the tapestry of cultures, languages and ideas that make up the city of London as well as the people who make up our office,” said Freddy Taylor, creative director at W+K London, which looked to multichannel creative platform It’s Nice That to find a diverse pool of talent to produce the work.

Eighteen London-based artists and illustrators including Maisie Cowell, Jae Yeon Kim and Holly Szczypka were ultimately tapped to fashion the portraits, using media ranging from watercolors to ceramics to 3D modeling.

The collection was inaugurated last Wednesday at a private viewing party at W+K London’s Spitalfields headquarters, with that unveiling being the first time the employees saw their new likenesses. “To maintain an element of surprise for our team,” Taylor said, “we invited them to submit one to three photos of themselves. We then randomly distributed these images among the 18 artists.”

“They’re the first thing you see when you walk in,” Taylor said of the portraits, which now permanently hang in the agency’s reception area. “They allow us to put the most important thing W+K has, its people, on a pedestal.”

The portrait series complements and continues the employee-inspired flair found at other Wieden+Kennedy offices around the globe. Its New York shop features 3D models of each employee, while in Shanghai, there are portraits infused with the hometown cuisines of each of their subjects, for example.

“New Faces” will exist as a sort of living artwork, with old portraits regularly being removed and new ones being commissioned as people come and go from W+K’s London workforce over time, the agency said.

A comprehensive selection of the portraits—several from each artist—can be found on W+K London’s Instagram page, with the agency also currently hosting an open house at its 16 Hanbury Street office every day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Friday, Oct. 6, for the public to see the artwork.