In 2021, Lyft was looking to bring about a new era in its branding while maintaining some of its core DNA. I worked closely with Creative Director Gianmaria Schönlieb to bring his new vision of Lyft to life. This new photography, shot by Mark Leibowitz, served as the brand's North Star. This work focuses on color, movement, and composition. It’s a style and a voice that could be applied to every line of business (even B2B use cases), with one main goal: to inject this re-found spirit into everything that is Lyft.
Visit lyft.com/immigration for the interactive website and full content.
I was part of a small group who built a culture studio within the Lyft Marketing team. Our purpose was to respond nimbly and thoughtfully to cultural flashpoints and political conversations.
Our first focus was on immigration. We looked to our driver community to source their stories and views on the subject.
We worked with Even/Odd on content and Hello Monday to design the interactive website.
Undercover Lyft is an award-winning YouTube series in which athletes, musicians, and actors get into the driver's seat to surprise unsuspecting Lyft passengers.
One of Lyft's most successful and long-running efforts, the series boasts over 25M views, 6B total impressions, 820M social impressions, and 77M engagements to date.
Recognition:
The Webby's
Cannes Shortlist
Digiday
Shorty Awards
To celebrate Halloween and a new season of “Stranger Things”, Lyft partnered with Netflix (and a number of special effects experts) to create Strange Mode.
Strange Mode was experienced via video content, in-app graphics, or for some, as the scariest Lyft ride of their life.
Select Press:
Sadly, this is one that never saw the light of day due to an abrupt strategy re-focus.
In this piece, we wanted to illustrate the history of transportation and where Lyft might fit into, and shape, the future.
Password is ellenblack
In the spirit of the MTV idents of the 90’s, we commissioned a series of logo animations with 20 up-and-coming motion artists.
Artists enjoyed creative control with a light touch of art direction from Lyft internal creative.
Artists included (not limited too): Sekani Solomon, Serge Seidlitz + Radio, Carlos Tsoi, Yum Yum, Bert Paige, Toast Studio, and Saiman Chow
For Pride 2017, Lyft highlighted the story of the first LGBTQ+ rights protest which helped spark a nationwide movement.
We worked with critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker, Cheryl Dunn, to tell the story of Alexei Romanoff and the Black Cat Tavern Protest of 1967.
The full Pride campaign included an integration with Lyft's Round Up & Donate feature through which passengers could donate to the Human Rights Campaign with each ride. There was also a printed zine featuring LA's current LGBTQ+ activists, which was placed in Lyft cars during Pride weekend.
An animated short film directed by Academy Award-winner John Kahrs, a lonely widow in historic South Chicago is inspired to start sharing the ride — and sharing her life, too.
Featuring original song, "Movin," written and performed by Lyft driver-turned-recording artist Sir the Baptist.
Recognition:
Shot by Allen Danze in 2019, these photographs were meant to show a more human side of Lyft drivers.
To encourage voting during the 2018 midterm election, Lyft offered 50% off all rides to the polls on election day. In order to spread the word in a tangible way, we installed a mural made up of “unused ballots” on a busy street on the lower east side of New York City.
Recognition: (For mural alone. Overall Ride to Vote campaign received over 175 pieces of coverage across 20 markets):
For April Fools' Day 2017 Lyft pioneered technology that absolutely no one was clamoring for- autonomous ride hailing.
The full campaign included a working prototype that called a Lyft with the raise of a hand, a flashy microsite, advertorial content, an experiential activation, and a video with more lasers than anything I've ever produced.
