Lyft's New NYC Billboards Are a Joyous, Colorful Salute to the Staycation

Lyft and Wieden + Kennedy New York have always used out-of-home advertising wonderfully, particularly in big cities, where it can raise the spirits of plenty of Lyft drivers and also get residents to think twice about calling an Uber. 

Their latest collaboration is a doozie—a fantastic series of “Staycation” ads in New York City, nostalgically art directed like classic “Greetings From” postcards and meant to encourage locals to venture outside their neighborhoods this summer and enjoy all of what NYC has to offer. 

W+K commissioned three artists—Steven Harrington, Mike Perry and Andrew Rae—to highlight six NYC destinations: the High Line, Museum Mile, Rockaway Beach, Industry City, Fort Tryon and Brooklyn Bridge Park.

W+K tells us the majority of ad placement are at street level “so audiences can take in the detailed artwork and even discover some new attractions at each destination.” 

Click the thumbnails below to see large versions of the ads. The joy of this work really is in the details:

Read more about the artists here: 

Steven Harrington 

Cited as the leader of a contemporary Californian psychedelic-pop aesthetic, Los Angeles–based artist and designer Steven Harrington is best known for his bright, iconic style that encourages a two-way conversation between the artist and viewer. There’s a timeless quality to his playful yet contemplative work, which is inspired by California’s mystique, vastly diverse landscape, and thriving mix of cultures. Embracing a multimedia approach, Harrington’s portfolio includes large-scale installations made of plaster and stone, handscreened prints, limited-edition books, skateboards, and sculptures. Alongside his commercial work, Harrington has exhibited artwork in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Berlin, Milan, Barcelona, Tokyo, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Montreal, Melbourne, and Dallas.

Mike Perry 

Mike Perry is an artist, animator, creative director, brand consultant, poet, and designer. His work encompasses paintings, drawings, sculptures, art installations, books, murals, all of which are made to conjure that feeling of soul-soaring you have when you stare into distant galaxies on a dark night, when you go on long journeys into the imagination, when you laugh and can’t stop laughing. Key to Mike’s working method is the recognition that art and objects, go through many iterations—discoveries, coverings, uncoverings—until they’re finished; people do the same until they are fully revealed. He likes to cultivate collectives of celebration, exhibition, and revelation.

Mike has completed a series of animation projects including the acclaimed show openers for the Comedy Central program Broad City, advertising for Coca-Cola, Oreo, and the Canadian cellphone company Koodo; as well as shorts for clients ranging from Herman Miller to GQ and RayBan. He continues to create new animation work and is developing a comedic series.

Andrew Rae 

Andrew Rae is an illustrator and member of the multi-disciplinary Peepshow Collective. He uses simple hand rendered line and a combination of paper, felt pens, watercolor, iPad, iMac and Wacom pads and screens to render irreverent images of characters, ghouls, robots, machines and creatures which are used in an editorial, publishing, advertising, animation and mural context. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine and has worked for many clients worldwide including The London Science Museum, Google and The Guardian. He was art director on the award winning BBC animation Monkey Dust, his graphic novel “Moonhead and the Music Machine” is published by Nobrow and he has illustrated “This is Warhol,” “This is Dali,” “Where’s Warhol” and “My Crazy Inventions Sketchbook” published by Laurence King. He currently lives and works in London near Highgate Cemetery.