Strength + Love: “The City Remembers”
Pandemic Memorial Campaign
City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office
The Challenge
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the City 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 challenge wasn’t logistical — it was emotional.
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 world-building moment — a three-day living memorial that turned public space into emotional architecture. We focused on three key World Building pillars:
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We identified how grief and community remembrance show up in LA’s diverse cultural fabric — from candles and colors to collective symbols of resilience — and used that as the emotional foundation for the campaign.
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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.
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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 manifestation of remembrance.
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Photo by David Crane,
Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
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The Transformation
The project transformed the idea of a “memorial” from a static ceremony into a shared emotional experience that rippled across Los Angeles.
The three-day activation became more than a remembrance — it became an act of civic healing, reminding Angelenos that recovery is not just physical, but emotional and cultural.
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The campaign reframed the Mayor’s Office from being a distant institution into a compassionate community presence — visibly standing with the people.
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Residents documented and shared the installations across social media, using campaign visuals and colors as personal tributes.
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City leaders described the campaign as the first time the office had “felt human” in how it communicated collective loss.
DFS Insights
“Worldbuilding isn’t just digital — it’s emotional infrastructure. It’s how cities, movements, and brands create belonging through shared experience.”
