The YSL Beauty Block Party is a touring series. London, Ho Chi Minh City, and on 19 September, Soho.
Our booth was on the sidewalk for the New York edition, and the design decision behind it is the whole reason this one is worth a post.
We did not brand it. We postered it.
Look at the first photo and find where the booth ends and the wall begins.
The same artwork is on both. Black, cream and hot pink poster panels, YSL BEAUTY BLOCK PARTY in heavy condensed caps, NYC EDITION, 09/19 SOHO. The wall behind it carries the identical posters. So does the pole beside it.
A block party has one visual language and it is flyposting, which is the same sheet, printed cheap, put up everywhere, overlapping itself, running around corners without regard for where one surface stops and the next starts. That is what a real block looks like when something is happening on it.
So rather than treating the booth as an object to brand, we treated it as another surface on the block. The panels run across faces, the type gets cut off at the corners the way a poster does when it meets an edge, and the whole thing reads as if the machine had simply been there when the fly-posting crew came through.
There is a version of this job where you make the booth the cleanest object on the street. That was exactly wrong here.
What we left uncovered
The part we are most pleased with is what is not postered.
The aluminium frame stays bare. The walnut lower panels stay visible. The black velvet curtain on its grommet rings is untouched. The floor plate still reads MAJESTIC through the door.
If we had covered every surface, it would have stopped being a photo booth and become a printed box. Leaving the frame and the wood showing is what keeps it legible as a machine, which is the thing people actually want to get into. A postered photo booth is charming. A postered cube is furniture.
Underneath is our Classic booth, finished for the event with custom panels. This was a one-day activation, so a ground up build would have been the wrong instrument. The right one is a booth that already works, dressed for the block.
One panel breaks the poster treatment: the YSL cushion compact, shot on quilted pink leather, sitting low on the front face at about knee height. It is the only photographic image on the whole cabinet and it is the only thing on there selling a product.
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The screen
Worth a line because it is the one moment the booth speaks in its own voice.
Black screen, cream type. YSL BEAUTY BLOCK PARTY, NYC EDITION, 09/19 SOHO, and then: Welcome to the Majestic Photobooth. Tap the screen to begin.
Two brands, one sentence each, neither shouting over the other. On a street where every flat surface was already yelling, the calmest thing in the activation was the instruction and clarity.
Where this sits
This is our second piece of work for YSL Beauty we are writing about. The first was the Candy Shoppe during New York Fashion Week, which was an indoor installation with a built stainless steel booth and a controlled room around it.
This is the opposite brief in every respect. Outdoors, one day, a music lineup, a street, and a finish designed to disappear into a campaign rather than stand apart from it. Same client, and no part of one would work for the other.
On placement it belongs with Birkenstock in Boulder, where we also put a booth on open pavement outside a store. That post covers how street placement actually runs, so this one does not repeat it.
It also adds to a good run of New York activations alongside Gucci 100 in the Meatpacking District.
Want one for yours?
We run brand activations nationwide, finished to whatever your campaign already looks like, and we place booths long term through our Venue Placement program with maintenance handled by us.
If your campaign has a look on the street, the booth can be part of it rather than next to it.
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