Lucas Porter-Bakker
All creative work Creative Direction · Design

ArDrive × NFT.NYC: Be Unruggable

Creative direction for a city-scale moment that bridged brand, product, and community.

Role
Creative Director and Head of Design
Team
CMO // COO // ENG // DESIGN
Be Unruggable campaign Times Square takeover NFT.NYC activation On-site experience

TL;DR

Partnered with the CMO as creative co-lead to turn a simple idea—make your collection un-ruggable—into a multi-channel campaign and product moment. We designed the visuals, motion, and on-site experience for two Times Square billboards and 45+ dynamic screens across Broadway and hotels, shipped merch and wayfinding, and ran an upload activation with promo codes to move collections onto permanent storage (Arweave via ArDrive). In parallel, I worked directly with RTFKT to migrate notable collections—including Clone X and RTFKT Animus—so the story connected to real utility.

Role

  • Creative Direction (hands-on): concept, visual language, art direction, motion, and production across OOH, digital, and event surfaces.
  • Head of Product & Design: partnered with product/eng to make migration flows real; ensured campaign pathways landed in a clean, working UX.
  • Cross-functional glue: day-to-day with the CMO, product marketing, design, and engineering to keep message, mechanics, and execution tight.

Brief

NFT.NYC is loud. We needed a line that educates and moves behavior, not just eyeballs. ArDrive's edge—permanent, user-owned storage—became the promise: "Unruggable legacies live on ArDrive." The goal: turn attention into uploads.

Concept

Make permanence visible. Treat collections like cultural artifacts—playful, but serious about provenance. Build a bold typographic system that scales from a phone to a 20-story billboard without losing the message. Keep motion purposeful: short loops, strong cadence, legible at distance.

Experience and channels

  • OOH at scale: two Times Square takeovers + 45+ screens along Broadway and partner hotels; motion built for high legibility and loop discipline.
  • On-site system: banners, badges, lanyards, and minimalist wayfinding to keep the install cohesive.
  • Digital surfaces: landing and social cut-downs mirroring the OOH grammar for continuity.
  • Activation: upload campaign with targeted promo codes—a simple, incentive-backed route to safeguard collections on ArDrive.

Product × Brand (closing the loop)

The campaign wasn't just spectacle. While the city lit up, we shipped the plumbing: in collaboration with RTFKT, we migrated Clone X and RTFKT Animus collection assets/metadata to Arweave via ArDrive - preserving them with verifiable permanence. I partnered with engineering on the migration UX and validation steps so "unruggable" was more than a headline.

Note: The collections remain viewable and tradable on OpenSea; what changed is where the media/metadata are anchored - now on Arweave via ArDrive for permanence—while OpenSea continues to surface them via the contract metadata.

Outcome

A cohesive story people could act on: see it in Times Square, understand it in one line, and secure a collection in minutes. The systemized visuals and motion became a reusable kit for future launches and partner co-marketing.

Collaboration

  • One team with the CMO: shared creative boards, fast feedback, and clear decision gates.
  • Tight with PMM: messaging hierarchy, claims review, and social calendar to align beats.
  • In the loop with Eng: production calendars mapped to release trains; last-mile QA on flows the campaign touched.

Fun to push next

Interactive OOH (QR → live on-chain proof), creator toolkits for self-serve "unruggable" drops, and a lightweight gallery that renders permanence as a living timeline.