ideas for good
client + freelance projects by christy chan 1998 - present
Hi. I’m Christy, a San Francisco based freelance creative director and writer. For 25 years, I’ve been a lead creative on agency projects, with a focus on telling authentic stories and doing a bit of good. I’m proud to be a go-to for pitches, manifestos, big picture thinking, and helping organizations come together under a shared cause. I started as a writer at Goodby Silverstein, worked as an ECD at Ogilvy on the Dove Real Beauty global launch and then went freelance, so that I could have more time to dream my own projects.
Besides my years in the for profit sector, I am a professional maker and visual artist. My public art projects have been installed across the U.S. and I am the founder of multiple non profits ventures that aim to center the voices of everyday communities. I recently won a U.S. Guggenheim award in visual art, so I hope that means that my ideas of using art for radical change are not really so radical, but just in time for the present moment.
I love working in teams, I love storytelling and I love using creativity for its highest good. If you feel the same way, let’s work together.
DOVE REAL BEAUTY
Who gets to take up space in the media? Was it time for the media to update their views on female representation? I was co-Creative Director on the Dove Real Beauty global pitch, which launched in 2004. Senior creatives were dispatched by Ogilvy and Mather all over the world to.... Read on
Time Magazine:
“Dove Real Beauty Seems To Be Aging Well"
Harvard Business School Case Study:
“Dove: Building a Brand with Purpose”
Campaign website
apple
I worked on the launch of the first iPhone while working in the in-house design department at Apple. At the time, the iphone was a secret and each time it was brought into the office fifty people gathered around to try and understand what it did. We had the surreal and fun challenge of figuring out how to introduce iphones to the world, before anyone had ever seen one.
everybody eats lunch
Public Art + Community
I founded Everybody Eats Lunch, a non profit project, in 2017.
In a politically heated time when talking to other Americans could feel difficult, my project brought strangers together for one-on-one meals and conversations, with fine dining meals donated by businesses.
Dubbed the “anti-echo chamber” experience by NPR & PBS, the project took place in multiple cities in the U.S.(read more)
nike
I worked on Nike Women at Goodby Silverstein. In keeping with Nike’s legacy of doing advertising that was less about sports, and more about what it means to be human - this campaign featured everyday women athletes and “real talk” as a jumping off point.
Gun control
I was the co-creator and writer of this campaign about gun control. The campaign ran in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago as outdoor guerrilla postings on the 20 year anniversary of John Lennon’s passing. Produced at Goodby Silverstein.
cliff / luna bar
Working with my art director, I created a new brand position, platform and line “Someday is Now” for the global positioning of Luna Bar.(2019) The campaign was then executed by the in-house design department and their partnering agencies across multiple mediums.
As a frequent fresh voice at agencies, I’m always honored to be trusted to re-brand a client…. and to help instigate the conversations about what they’re ready to say to the world, and be an ally for.
ONE DESIGN MAGAZINE
I worked on the launch of One Design, a boutique magazine created by the founders of Wired Magazine. The project required lots of enjoyable eyeball time, looking at industrial design furniture and architecture. Next to social good projects, design-centered clients are my favorite to work with.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
I enjoyed writing and producing tv spots and billboards for the “Fun With Capitalism” campaign, which Goodby Silverstein originated in the 90’s. The campaign playfully reminded people that intellectualism can be fun and globalism was a language.
Fun production note: one of the comedians cast in these commercials later became well known. #Spot the comedian #Fun with casting
LEVIS
I worked on the re-pitching of Levis at Cutwater/Chiat Day.
My designers and I created ads for women that shook off fashion stereotypes and updated what it authentically means to be in a female body wearing jeans.
I also wrote manifesto scripts that relied on beat era poetry - and the notion that iconic poetry better captures the feeling of being young than any new advertising idea could. This was later successfully produced as the anchor spot of a Levis campaign, Pioneers, that showed the authenticity of youth simply being themselves.
zico, coca-cola company
I was hired as a freelance creative director and lead writer to rebrand Zico in 2018. The client wanted a more modern voice, while maximizing the star power of their brand spokesperson Jessica Alba, actor and founder of the Honest Company. The result was the “What’s Inside is Everything” campaign. Produced by Wunderman, full production credits available online.
VIRGIN AIRLINES
I developed ads for Virgin Airline’s existing “Breath of Fresh Air” campaign. Produced at Eleven, San Francisco.
all is not lost
Public Art and Community
During the pandemic, we collectively experienced the hardship of being isolated from friends, family and our communities. In response, I created “All is Not Lost” an outdoor, safe-to-view public art installation that offered a moment of reflection and collective pause.
The video featured footage of a waterfall slowly flowing backwards, and was visible to passengers on the New York Metro North train line. Created with individual artist funding by the New York Arts Foundation, Wassaic Project and more. The waterfall has also been installed in California.
The artwork itself was a composite of five different waterfalls I filmed around the country.
BELL SPORTS
Produced at Goodby Silverstein. Shot in a re-creation of a New York City subway car. #Hats off #production designers
ikea
BTS story: When I developed this billboard with the designers at Lowe Advertising, SARS was spreading in Southeast Asia and the client - IKEA - thoughtfully debated whether it was strange to show people without masks during an international pandemic. In the end, we showed the actors without masks, believing that images signaling hope for “normalcy” was sometimes what people needed. Also, people don’t really live inside shelving units, so.
SOO KEE JEWELRY
While freelancing at Lowe and Partners, I conceived “Romance the Everyday” as the launch for a diamond company.
At the time, kissing and PDA was banned on Singaporean television, one of the countries were the spot ran. But what happened next was unexpected.
The Singapore government, already concerned that the country was facing lower birth rates, didn’t take the commercial off the air. Instead, they co-opted the campaign as a national promotion for romance and procreation. The commercial ran for eight years.
As a person of Chinese descent, I haven’t technically given birth to Chinese children, but this campaign makes me feel like I’ve done my part. The diamond company did fine too.
estroven
Food and Wellness
I took a playful approach to writing and directing this commercial for Estroven. Produced at Evolution Bureau, with their in house producer team.
#Fire and post production by Beast Editorial
san francisco chronicle
Publishing and Media
The Chronicle is the longest running newspaper in San Francisco. My art directors and I created this spot at Fire Engine No. 1 to remind people of the unique local focus of the Chronicle.
covey run
The concept of Birds with an Opinion was created for the client at Fire Engine No. 1 in San Francisco. Covey Run, a popular winery in Washington State, has been using the concept for over 14 years.
MINI
Mini is a fuel-efficient car that’s well designed and fun to test drive out the door of a client’s parking lot. I worked briefly as a freelance writer at Butler Shine and Stern on the Mini campaign.
View
deprogramming chamber
Non Profit + Community
I wrote and directed this film for a youth arts program, Root Division in San Francisco. The intention was to show young artists that they can and should expected cultural support for an arts-driven life.
ARROW
Music and Culture
View more radio station projects
Arrow is a popular radio station in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 2019, an art director friend and I created “Are You an Arrowhead?” — a campaign that could then invite the public to make their own photos, submit them to Arrow and have them turned into billboards. I am a fan of participatory projects that give the public ownership over campaigns.
axe
Music and Culture
“It’’s better to have a song stuck in your head than an axe.” One of several playful spots I was the writer on, for an indie music station. Produced at at Lowe & Partners.
GOT MILK?
Produced at Goodby Silverstein.
beach blanket
Music and Culture
Beach Blanket Babylon is a long-running musical theater in San Francisco. Along with my art director, I was hired as writer to give them a brand voice and creative direction that would reflect the playful, current events-inspired offerings of the theater.
kashi
Kashi, a health foods brand, wanted to feature its natural ingredients as part of their campaign. The feel good campaign helped the client attract the attention of Kellog’s, who later bought Kashi and now sells it globally.
REVISION
Design and Speculative Future
Why does design matter? I was the lead writer on the brand launch of Revision, a design-based think tank that trains government organizations to use design processes to create breakthrough solutions in complex urban planning problems in cities. Working with their in-house team, we created a manifesto, printed matter and on-line presence that introduced their work to cities across the country. For me, this project was proof that entrepeneurship, government and big picture solutions can coexist.
Inside OUT Richmond
I founded the non profit art project Inside Out in 2018. The project transformed autobiographical phrases submitted by Richmond residents into large scale projection art on the walls of Richmond City Hall, in partnership with the city of Richmond.
Why project on a large brick wall? In a time when the word “wall” was being used to divide us, this project sought to use a government wall to unite us, and illuminate the voices of all Americans in one of the most racially diverse cities in the U.S.
→ News Coverage
Public Art
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Public Art 〰️
DEAR AMERICA
→ Non Profit + Community
Though anti-Asian bigotry had existed for centuries in the U.S, hate crimes and physical attacks against Asian Americans escalated more than 10,000% in the Bay Area during Covid and following President Trump’s casually destructive rhetoric on Asian Americans. This violence continues and remains under-reported in the media.
In an effort to give a bold platform to the local AAPI community and to reclaim the airwaves with empowering messages, I created Dear America Project- a guerilla public art project that projects messages of resilience by Asian American artists up to 20 stories high on buildings throughout the Bay Area. The project was guerrilla on purpose, to symbolize that AAPI bodies and voices do not need permission to take up space, and they will go where they please.
Seven non profit organizations and 120 volunteers came together to help pull the project off. We projected in 5 cities throughout the Bay Area for three months.
I declined invitations from local corporations to turn the work into marketing campaigns for their products. Using my advertising background, I also created a case study, legal kit for other non profits to successfully fight the unauthorized co-opting of community projects.
→ Gallery available soon