How Design Helped Turn Ashby One Into a Community Experience
San Francisco Event Space News | 5/14/2026
Ashby One event photography by Sam Khedr and Melanie Duerkopp
Ashby One 2026 brought together more than 600 talent acquisition and recruiting operations leaders for a day of product announcements, workshops, networking, and conversations about the future of hiring.
Hosted at The Midway in San Francisco, the conference transformed the venue into a fully branded environment that felt less like a traditional software conference and more like a gathering of practitioners, operators, and industry leaders sharing ideas about where hiring and talent technology are headed next.
Design That Started Before Guests Entered the Venue
One of the most memorable aspects of Ashby One was how the experience began long before attendees reached the front door.
Guests were greeted by custom directional graphics painted directly onto nearby streets, helping guide visitors to the venue while extending the conference brand into the surrounding neighborhood. The result was a sense of anticipation and discovery that started before check-in.
Throughout the campus, playful design touches reinforced the Ashby brand. Purple newsstand-inspired installations, custom signage, wayfinding elements, and other branded moments helped create a cohesive experience from arrival through the closing reception.
A Brand That Felt Human
Many technology conferences focus heavily on product messaging and presentations. Ashby One balanced those elements with personality.
The conference’s distinctive purple branding appeared throughout the venue, but the experience never felt overly corporate. Instead, playful details helped create a welcoming atmosphere that reflected the community Ashby has built around its platform.
One of the most recognizable examples was Ashby’s oversized purple squirrel mascot, which became a popular photo opportunity and an unexpected way to bring energy and humor into the event experience.
Combined with direct access to Ashby’s founders, leadership team, product experts, and customers, the conference felt approachable, personal, and highly interactive.
Designing for Social Learning
One of the biggest trends in modern conference design is the growing importance of social learning.
Attendees still value keynotes, product announcements, and expert presentations, but increasingly they are looking for opportunities to learn from one another as well.
Ashby One combined main-stage programming with workshops, Ashby Labs sessions, networking opportunities, and informal gathering spaces that encouraged attendees to exchange ideas throughout the day.
For industries being rapidly transformed by AI, these peer-to-peer conversations can be just as valuable as the content delivered on stage. Conference design is increasingly about creating environments where those interactions can happen naturally.
The Midway as a Conference Campus
The Midway’s campus-style layout helped support this approach.
Rather than keeping attendees in a single room all day, the event utilized multiple environments for learning, networking, meals, and community building. Guests moved naturally between keynote sessions, breakout discussions, workshops, and outdoor gathering areas throughout the day.
This variety created a sense of energy and discovery while encouraging attendees to continue conversations between sessions.
It also reinforced one of the key goals of the conference: bringing people together.
As one attendee noted, the combination of auditoriums, breakout rooms, courtyards, and indoor-outdoor experiences gave the event an energy that felt more like a festival than a traditional conference.
Watch the Event Recap
The event recap video highlights many of the design elements that helped define the attendee experience, from the custom branding and wayfinding to the workshops, networking moments, and community interactions that took place throughout the day.
Watch the Ashby One recap video on Instagram
Creating Experiences That Extend Beyond the Stage
Ashby One demonstrated how thoughtful conference design can strengthen community, encourage collaboration, and create a more engaging experience for attendees.
By combining product innovation, social learning, playful branding, and a campus-style environment, the event created opportunities for meaningful connections throughout the day.
For organizations planning customer conferences, technology summits, AI events, and user conferences, it offers a compelling example of how design can help transform a conference into a community experience.
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