ISSA RAE × AIRBNB CASE STUDY
Pattern, Place + Black LA. Creating a visual language for Issa Rae’s South Los Angeles Airbnb experience
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Client: Issa Rae × Airbnb
Location: South Los Angeles, California
Project Type: Hospitality / Experiential Design
Scope: Custom Wallcovering + Textile Design
Spaces: Living Room + Dining Area
Value: A custom design system, from wallcovering to textiles, that brought cultural storytelling and continuity to a high-profile guest experience.
In February 2022, Issa Rae partnered with Airbnb to create a South Los Angeles stay celebrating the people, culture, and businesses that shaped her creative story.
Complex Flavors contributed custom surface and textile design, creating wallpaper for the living room, an inverted pattern and colorway for the dining area, and coordinating pillows.
The result was a connected visual language that carried pattern throughout the home while giving each space its own identity.
Creating connection without repetition
The interior needed to reflect a strong sense of place and personality while remaining cohesive with a home already layered with artwork, furnishings and cultural references.
Airbnb’s concept centered South LA itself: the residence featured work by local Black artists, neighborhood businesses and experiences selected by Rae to give guests a more intimate connection to the community that informed her creative work. Airbnb Newsroom
The challenge for Complex Flavors was therefore not simply to introduce another decorative pattern.
The surface design needed to:
contribute to the larger cultural narrative of the home
establish a visual relationship between the living and dining spaces
complement rather than compete with the artwork and furnishings
create movement through pattern without making both rooms feel identical
The question became:
How can one visual language evolve across multiple spaces while allowing each room to have its own expression?
THE CHALLENGE
-
A pattern that changes as you move through the home
The vision was to treat the connected rooms almost like chapters of the same story.
The living room would introduce the primary expression of the pattern, establishing color, rhythm and personality.
As guests moved into the dining area, they would encounter a familiar visual language reinterpreted through an inverse color relationship.
Instead of duplicating the living-room wallpaper, the design shifted.
Same story.
Different perspective.
Custom pillows extended the pattern beyond the walls, bringing the visual language into the furnishings and helping connect the architecture, surfaces and soft goods.
The intention was to make the environment feel collected and layered rather than matched.
-
Pattern as an environmental system
Complex Flavors developed the project around three interconnected design moves:
Living Room — The Primary Pattern The living room became the foundation of the visual story. The custom wallcovering introduced pattern at architectural scale, allowing the walls to participate in the identity of the room rather than simply serving as a neutral backdrop.
The wallpaper worked alongside the home's art collection and furnishings to create a layered environment that felt expressive, contemporary and personal.
Dining Area — The Inverse Rather than repeating the exact living-room treatment, Complex Flavors created an inverted interpretation of the pattern and color relationship for the dining area.
This created continuity without duplication.
From one room to another, guests could recognize the relationship between the designs, but each space retained its own mood and visual identity.
That inversion became a subtle wayfinding device: a shift in atmosphere signaling that guests had entered another part of the experience while remaining within the same overall story.
Custom Textiles — Extending the Story Coordinating pillows carried the visual language away from the walls and into the room itself.
By translating elements of the surface design into textiles, pattern became part of the full environment rather than an isolated wall treatment.
The combination of wallcovering and soft goods created a more immersive experience and demonstrated how a single design idea could move across multiple surfaces.
-
Issa Rae described the project as a way to showcase the people, businesses and culture that make South LA vibrant. The Airbnb incorporated work by Black artists including Maya Iman, Vakseen and Domonique Brown, alongside neighborhood businesses and experiences selected by Rae.
That context is important to the Complex Flavors contribution.
The wallpaper was not installed in isolation.
It became one layer within an environment where art, food, entrepreneurship, design and neighborhood identity were intentionally brought together.
For Complex Flavors, this project represented an opportunity to use pattern in the same way the broader experience used art and local businesses: as a vehicle for personality, culture and place.From decorated rooms to a connected experience
The transformation was less about changing the architecture and more about creating visual continuity and emotional character.
The living room introduced the primary design story.
The dining room responded with an inverted interpretation.
The custom pillows carried the language further into the furnishings.
Together, those elements created a rhythm that moved with the guest through the home.
Rather than applying the same wallpaper throughout, Complex Flavors created a family of related surfaces, allowing the interior to feel cohesive while preserving the individuality of each space.
The result demonstrates a core belief behind the studio's work:
A surface can do more than finish a room. It can connect spaces, communicate identity and help tell the story of a place.
One pattern. Multiple expressions. One connected story.
-
What was once a neutral, undefined corridor is now a destination within the space.
The entryway:Installed in the dining room, the wallpaper transforms the environment.
What was once just a functional area becomes:
A place for connection
A space for presence
A backdrop for shared moments
The pattern doesn’t just sit on the wall—it lives within the experience of the room.
PHOTO GALLERY
-
![Interior design concept board showing custom wallpaper, curved white sofas, patterned pillows, lounge chairs, plants, artwork, and sculptural coffee table.]()
Concept Development — Living Room
Early design development explored how custom wallcovering, furniture, art, and textiles could work together as one cohesive visual system.
-
![Two custom black and white graphic pillows reading “Fresh Cool Dope Black” displayed on a caramel leather sofa.]()
Custom Pillow Design
Custom pillows extended the design story beyond the walls, carrying graphic language and personality directly into the furnishings.
-
![Issa Rae Airbnb living room with custom neutral wallpaper, curved white sectional, tropical plants, framed artwork, and patterned pillows.]()
Living Room — Custom Wallpaper + Textiles
Custom wallcovering and coordinating pillows bring pattern, rhythm, and personality into the living room while complementing the home’s art and furnishings.
Photo: Sean Costello -
![Issa Rae Airbnb dining room with custom wallpaper, black dining table, mustard chairs, modern chandelier, artwork, and large green plants.]()
Dining Room — An Inverse Expression
The dining room introduces an inverted interpretation of the custom pattern, creating continuity with the living area while giving the space its own identity.
Photo: Sean Costello -
![Issa Rae Airbnb bedroom with rust velvet curtains, white sculptural headboard, green pillows, tropical plants, and graphic patterned wallpaper.]()
Bedroom — Layered Color + Pattern
Warm velvet, graphic pattern, and lush greenery create a rich, expressive bedroom that continues the home’s layered visual language.
Photo: Sean Costello -
![Issa Rae Airbnb living room with custom neutral wallpaper, curved white sectional, tropical plants, framed artwork, and patterned pillows.]()
Living Room — A Connected Visual Story
Pattern wraps the room without overwhelming it, creating a cohesive backdrop for art, furniture, greenery, and custom textiles.
Photo: Sean Costello -
![Original hand-drawn geometric motif in warm neutral tones developed for the Issa Rae Airbnb custom wallpaper.]()
Pattern Development
Description goes hereOriginal hand-drawn forms were developed into a repeating surface pattern, transforming a single motif into an architectural-scale design.
-
![Two custom wallpaper samples in inverse neutral colorways laid side by side on a hardwood floor during design development.]()
Colorway + Scale Testing
Multiple colorways and pattern scales were tested to ensure the final wallcovering worked across different spaces while maintaining a consistent visual identity.
-
![Custom wallpaper installation in progress in the Issa Rae Airbnb dining area, showing large wall sections and modern pendant lighting.]()
Installation in Progress
Behind the scenes, the custom wallcovering comes to life on site—showing the transition from concept and sample development to the finished environment.
The Issa Rae × Airbnb experience generated excitement beyond the property itself, with guests and media personalities sharing reactions to the space across social platforms.
The response reinforced what the project was designed to create: an environment that felt memorable, culturally rooted, and worth talking about.
If the TikTok specifically shows the living room, dining area, or your wallpaper in the footage, we can make the caption slightly more connected to your contribution:
A closer look at how the custom surfaces became part of the guest experience.
SEEN + EXPERIENCED
THE IMPACT
Exclusive design built for the experience. A custom pattern language created for this home, not an off-the-shelf wallpaper.
Cultural storytelling through surface. The design became part of a larger story about South LA, Black art, and community.
Connected rooms without repeating them. An inverse color and pattern treatment gave the living and dining areas their own personalities while keeping them unified.
One concept, multiple applications. The pattern carried from walls into coordinating pillows, creating an immersive guest experience.
CLOSING
Because great design isn’t only about what fills a room.
It’s about creating connection.
Building identity.
Carrying a story from one space to the next.
For the Issa Rae × Airbnb experience, pattern became part of that story — linking walls, textiles, color, culture, and place into one connected environment.
Spaces with Soul.