CREATIVE DIRECTOR LYFT
SAN FRANCISCO CA
Gianmaria Schonlieb is a Creative Director at Lyft. With extensive experience in advertising and art direction, he has created campaigns for many iconic brands including Coca-Cola, Dodge, Converse, and Google. Previously he has worked for some of the most awarded advertising agencies such as Wieden+Kennedy Portland and Swedish creative agency, B-Reel. Before Lyft, he was the Creative Director of NYC based furniture start-up, Burrow.
HOW AND WHY DID YOU BECOME INVOLVED IN DESIGNING FOR GOOD AND WHY DO YOU BELIEVE DESIGN IS AN ESPECIALLY EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR THIS GOAL?
Good creative ideas should do three important things: stay in people’s memory, make people think, and generate an emotion. If you accomplish one, the other two will follow. We are constantly influenced by design. We make decisions based on design choices on a daily basis, so why not use design to bring people around an important cause? Some people raise awareness with a song, movie, or with a piece of art, while creatives do it with design. This year more than ever I was moved to work on creative projects for social causes. On World Book Day 2020, I launched “Bookmarks For Good”, a campaign encouraging people to stay home and read more books helping to flatten the curve of the spread of COVID-19. When I thought about creating bookmarks, I was thinking of what I could design that would speak to people who were locked at home. I wanted to create something that could be useful to people. In a time when everyone re-discovered simple pleasures like baking bread with their family, why not remind them of the importance of reading while raising funds for COVID-19? I spent every night for more than 3 weeks designing and painting bookmarks and set up a website to process the orders. It was an extremely fun and fulfilling project. All proceeds went to the NYC COVID-19 Emergency Funds.
GIVEN THE CONFLUENCE OF EVENTS AND CHALLENGES WE FACE THIS FALL, DOES 2020 PRESENT ANY SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES, URGENCIES, OBSTACLES TO DESIGNING FOR GOOD?
While this year has been marked by unprecedented challenges for all us, this moment in time paradoxically represents an opportunity for designers and creatives of all types to use their skills and talent to raise awareness. People are always in need of tools to communicate their ideologies and the design community should be there to create those tools. I have always felt that something as simple as a poster can transport a message as well as any other vehicle. Now even more than ever, designers can use social media as a direct path to the minds and hearts of viewers, amplifying the power of their work. Where there’s an obstacle, design offers a powerful solution.
