Citi Bike Key
A Premium Reward for the Biggest Helpers

The Citi Bike Angels Steel Key is a premium reward for users of Citi Bike, the nation’s largest bike sharing system. Citi Bike and their parent company, Motivate, approached Tomorrow Lab to create a special key to reward their members who earn points while volunteering their time to balance the New York City bike ecosystem. By transporting bikes from crowded stations to empty ones, they help the environment and fellow riders. These volunteers are called Bike Angels, and the key is referred to as the ‘Steel Angel Key’.

The story of this project began in 2013, when Tomorrow Lab hacked the original RFID key of the then newly launched Citi Bike System. The hack took the functional portion of the RFID token from the original plastic housing and turned it into something new and beautiful; a gold, wearable jewelry pendant that you could use to unlock a Citi Bike.

5 years later, Citi Bike approached Tomorrow Lab to develop and product hundreds of a new key design - this time as a premium reward for high achieving volunteers in their Bike Angels program. For those who don’t know, Bike Angles are Citi Bike users who redistribute bicycles as needed and are rewarded with redeemable points. The original key is a white plastic tag, but Citi Bike wanted to upgrade to something more special.

01 — Industrial Design & Product Strategy

Through several months of iteration, Tomorrow Lab developed a material and design strategy to suit the needs of the client. We explored various metal materials and forms, as well as handmade plastic interior made from ground-up used Citi Bike Keys. The final keychain has a sleek engraved steel base, featuring unique portions of the New York City street map in the trademark Citi Bike shade of blue.