An Employee Badge Worth Paying For

One day word went round that a remarkable drawing had appeared on the glass partition of the DT Crew. People gathered, and after studying it our CEO asked us to find whoever had drawn it.

The artist turned out to be Hey, from inside the company. The proposal was simple: make caricatures that capture each person's character, and use them to make the place more creative and more alive. That is how the project started.

Style came first. We weighed a realistic portrait, a line-led character, and something simpler and more minimal, and chose the direction that suited the company with everyone's input.

Then came sketching in person. To catch a natural expression and the features that actually make a face, Hey drew people sitting in front of him, and they got to watch themselves appear on the page. Drafts were then built up with digital tools, with the eyes, the smile, and the hair pushed slightly further than life.

Each draft went back to its subject. Requests came in — my forehead looks too wide, could the glasses be rounder — and the final versions went onto badges, profile pictures, and team pages.

A few things became clear along the way. Capturing someone's character requires actually listening to them. Digital tools make both the fine detail and the revisions far easier. And the small details, a distinctive pair of glasses or a smile that has become a trademark, are what decide whether it works.

The effect was larger than expected. People talked to each other about the drawings, and the team grew closer. Badges and cards carrying them passed the feel of the company on to outside partners without anyone explaining it. Most of all, people were proud that their own character had been given a form.

The caricatures became more than drawings; they became something that holds the organisation together. Seeing what that small change did, we intend to keep trying things like it.