City of LA, Mayors Office
Strength + Love: The City Remembers
CLIENT | City of Los Angeles, Mayor’s Office
PLACE | Griffith Park Observatory, Downtown LA, LAX
PROJECT | On & Offline Campaign
World building turned a single memorial message into a participatory civic experience that connected digital, physical, and community touch points across Los Angeles, landing at the Griffith Park Observatory & across Los Angeles.
Each day, City Hall lit up with the colors we chose for each memorial day the event was happening.
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mayor’s office of Los Angeles needed a way to honor over 30,000 lives lost and create a shared sense of healing across a deeply fragmented city.
The campaign wasn’t just about logistical needs, but emotional ones as well.
The city had statements, ceremonies, and statistics, but no unifying world for people to process collective grief together.
The Mayor’s Office needed to transform remembrance into something that could be felt — on every corner, in every neighborhood, by every resident.
The Approach
We approached this not as a campaign, but as a citywide moment to create a world around — a 3-day memorial that turned public space into emotional architecture. We focused on three key World Building pillars →
-
We identified how grief and community remembrance show up in LA’s diverse cultural fabric. From candles and colors, to collective symbols of resilience… we and used that as the emotional foundation for the campaign.
-
We developed the campaign’s full sensory language — color palette, typography, graphics, and environmental visuals — that balanced reverence with renewal.
Every design element served as a visual cue for hope and unity based on psychodynamics AND the culture of LA.
-
We brought the memorial to life across the city: custom posters and banners for bus stops and benches, large-format city signage, and coordinated lighting of a central Downtown LA landmark.
For three days, the city itself became the medium. A physical expression of remembrance.
The Results
World Building turned a single memorial message into a participatory civic experience that connected digital, physical, and community touchpoints across Los Angeles.
26,661 white flags installed at Griffith Observatory to represent lives lost in Los Angeles County.
Three nights of citywide participation organized around honoring, remembering, and mobilizing.
Major Los Angeles landmarks illuminated in the color representing the day’s theme, including City Hall, SoFi Stadium, Dodger Stadium, the Grand Park Fountain, and the Pacific Wheel.
An online community archive and digital tools allowed residents to participate from wherever they were.
One shared public language connected remembrance, gratitude, and collective action across the activation.