last year we built a machine and live-streamed it throughout the weekend. you can read more about that here:

our ideas ranged from tiny to giant machines, to building a monolith in the middle of the ocean. the concept we landed on was to construct a mini city comprised of users that build on stripe, with live screens and posters to display the data moving throughout the stripe network.

to keep build details short, we started with paper models and legos, eventually moving on to laser cut buildings that were hand painted. the layout was based around a multi camera setup that would get the most out of each district.

you’re welcomed to the city with a postcard. to give the live feeds time to load, there’s an intro animation with photographs. @bits_by_brandon not only built this interaction, he drove the train and recorded every sound.

you can also take your own photos and draw on them.

to traverse the districts, we opted for some small navigation bars on the bottom you can scrub through or click. the small bars serve as a lo-fi mini map letting you know how much of each district is in view.

data counts up in real-time both within the physical billboards inside the city and on posters that reveal on hover.

there’s a full day and night cycle in stripe city. we used video game timing (roughly 45min cycles) since visitors will come from all timezones and didn’t want people to have to stay on the site a full 24 hours to see all of the different views.

we recreated the entire city in blender so we were able to place the posters within the scene and not just over it. last year people didn't realize the machine was real, this year it was so real we needed a fake version.

a few of my favorite details: @stripepress library for ants, mini @tryramp , press authors (@chughesjohnson @dwarkesh_sp and @stewartbrand), @WorksInProgMag stand, @Rivian r1s, lil phone booths, @tbpn sounds, collison auto and more.l

throughout the weekend buildings have moved, lighting has changed, giant hands have invaded, and numbers have continued to grow.

we had a lot of help from some incredibly talented people to bring this idea to life. here are some more process shots.

there are many worth thanking but to name a few: @trv_mcl @narrowd @phlntn @nainoashizuru @Jess_Pettet @caitbhri @alypavs @pablodelcan cristian @lil_dill @_MichaelJeter FXWRX, John LePore, data teams, and many more.

if you made it this far, thank you!

lmao

not even once

❤️❤️

ty my guy