Lyft Luck Slot Machine

Lyft Luck: A Giant Slot Machine

Lyft came to ISL with a challenge: incoming college students are more likely to use Uber than Lyft. And they wanted to change that. So we got to thinking: If our goal was to encourage new college students to download the Lyft app, what magic could we bake into the app without touching the software itself?

What if simply having the Lyft app on your phone could unlock a delightful experience for new users and Lyft fans alike? We created a larger than life slot machine with a pure-fun user experience to make downloading the Lyft app impossibly fun, creating a positive (and sticky) perception of the brand in the minds of our audience.

The concept was created by DJ Saul, Zach Goodwin, Jeremy Carbaugh, Josh Strupp, and myself. Once we moved into execution, my role as the Art Director was to define the user experience and work with our hardware team (Zach Saale and Adam Hughes) to design the physical machine, while also working with our illustrator Chris Guyot and sound designer John Poon to create the on-screen experience.

The machine was a smashing success. The client loves it — and brings it to just about every event in the DC area. Audiences go wild for it onsite; I ran into the contraption at a local festival with a giant line and lots of cheers (and then I looked pretty creepy taking a video). So far, it's had over 20,000 in-person impressions and over 2.5k coupon applications. Don't believe me? Check it out in person. I can promise that handle is way, way too much fun to pull.