Brand Experience Design
Lyft Pink
Context
Lyft launched a new multi-modal membership program, Lyft Pink, designed to give riders an elevated experience with preferred pricing and added benefits across rides, bikes, and scooters. I led the design of the brand identity and visual language within the product, and provided art direction for how Lyft Pink extended across various marketing touchpoints.
Challenges
With any major initiative comes significant challenges. Our team set out to create an identity that could grow into a core experience for a large portion of Lyft’s users, similar to how Amazon Prime exists alongside the Amazon master brand. A key question from the start was brand hierarchy: would this program live as a sub-brand or simply as an extension of Lyft?
Adding to the complexity, we began the identity work without a name. For months, we designed, iterated, and aligned stakeholders while the program itself remained nameless. After rounds of research, discussions, and leadership reviews, the name Lyft Pink was finally approved, giving the brand its foundation.
Approach
We chose a more branded name because it allowed us to build on Lyft’s existing identity, avoid being boxed into a “pricing product,” and step away from the purely economic back-and-forth with competitors.
Since the Lyft brand is known for being bold, tenacious, and playful, it made sense for the membership identity to carry those same qualities. In order to guide the work, our team established a set of principles that shaped how Lyft Pink came to life.
Focus Areas & Explorations
I identified three main areas of focus that became the backbone for our visual directions and early explorations of the Lyft Pink identity. During the three-month naming process, we worked through early design explorations and created a range of name-agnostic artifacts using placeholder names like Lyft Club, Lyft Membership, and Lyft Squad.
Directions
While we pushed forward without a name for the membership program, our explorations surfaced three key visual elements: an amorphous orb that evolved into various shapes, a trip-line motif inspired by the path of a rider, and a color-shifting system focused on applying dynamic color across interface elements.
We received feedback from our CEO Logan Green that the orb direction in the many applications that we showed was visually interesting but felt unpredictable – this was the last things we wanted to hear. We continued on with the trip-line motif, but concluded that it was too similar to the existing product and never really felt like an elevated version of the Lyft brand.
Identity System
Once we finalized the name Lyft Pink, the 'Aurora' direction we had been working on stood out as a natural expression of Lyft’s bold and tenacious identity, a visual language defined by a spectrum of ever-changing colors.
We began to look at what we internally called 'The Golden Path,' the company’s core user experience flow. Defining which screens and portions of the interface could adopt the application of the Lyft Pink visual language.
Color
With a name like Lyft Pink, it would be easy to assume the identity leaned heavily on the color pink. Instead, we played into Lyft’s bold sense of humor. Because the interface already used Lyft’s core brand colors of pink and purple, adding even more pink felt redundant.
By avoiding it, we created space to diverge from the core brand without diluting it or creating confusion. This opened the door for a distinct palette bespoke to the membership program and visually differentiated within the product.
Product Application
We began exploring what we internally called The Golden Path, the company’s core rider experience flow, to define which screens could adopt the Lyft Pink visual language.
As we mapped out these surfaces, it became clear that the saturated gradient colors would not meet accessibility standards nor the level of visual polish we were trying to achieve. This led us to heavily refining the approach and establishing guidelines for when and how to apply a much lighter, more accessible version of the gradient across both the product and marketing-related touchpoints.
Information
Lyft completely redesigned its previous subscription model and transformed it into a multi-modal membership program that continues to thrive six years later.
I led the design of the visual identity system and partnered closely with Fahrettin Tasdelen to bring the visual language to life across the entire product experience. Below are some key data points from the successful launch:
Launched on December 4, 2019
Adoption: 120k active members by the end of 2019 (3.2% of all company rides)
Retention: 80% first-month retention (up from 73% on prior subscriptions)
Growth: Roughly 50% of member rides were incremental
Our Chase partnership led to 50,000+ new member sign-ups within the first three days by users simply pairing a Chase card with a Lyft account.
Enabled the launch of Lyft Bikes & Scooters partnerships, supporting 250k+ bike members (representing 85% of all bike rides).
Credits
Brand Experience Design → Jon Howell
↳ Product Design Manager → Ryan Farina
↳ Executive Creative Director → Tim Roan
↳ Product Designer → Fahrettin Tasdelen
↳ Lead Motion Designer → Robert Paige
↳ Product Marketing Manager → Brittany Branscomb
↳ Product Manager → Mojin Chen
↳ Design Ops → Kyle Caruso
Additional Projects
