Bicing, sense disfressa — Universitat Studio

A woman riding a bicycle down a sunlit Barcelona street in everyday clothes — Fes teva la ciutat. Make the city yours. The campaign line, in Catalan, over a reference frame from the proposal.

The gap is not where you would expect it

Bicing is Barcelona's public bike-sharing service. The brief was open: pick a brand, propose a campaign, defend it in two weeks.

The proposal starts from three numbers that sit oddly together. Women are the majority of people crossing Barcelona on public transport. They are a shrinking minority in the bike lane. But on Bicing specifically, the gap is much smaller than it is on privately owned bikes.

30.7% of people counted cycling in Barcelona in 2025 were women, five points below 2021

56 / 67% of metro and bus trips in the city are made by women

72/28 → 54/46 men to women on private bikes, against Bicing users

Sources: BACC, baròmetre de la bici 2025 · EMEF / IERMB, encuesta de movilidad · B:SM / Bicing, user data 2025.

She already crosses the city, on fixed lines

Two thirds of bus trips and more than half of metro trips in Barcelona are made by women. The mobility is already there. What is missing is the freedom to choose the route rather than follow one.

56%of metro trips are made by women

67%of bus trips are made by women

From the proposal. The city she already covers, and the lines she is limited to covering it on.

What the audience is actually turning down

The gap is not about skill or willingness. Most of the women in the research already know how to ride. What they turn down is everything attached to it: the gear, the clothes, the posture, the idea that using a bike means becoming a cyclist.

That is also why the public bike matters. You do not have to own it, store it, maintain it or identify with it. You take one, you leave it.

Privately owned bicycles locked in a row along a Barcelona avenue, next to bus and metro signs — Private bikes on the street, next to the bus stop and the metro entrance. Owning one is a commitment. The shared one is not.

They do not reject the bicycle. They reject having to become cyclists in order to use it.

The line the proposal is built on, translated from the original.

The L5 rider

She is 25 to 44. She lives, works or studies inside the Bicing service area. She already moves around the city and she knows how to ride. She does not think of herself as a cyclist.

Her day is not a line. It is home, work, the gym, family, friends, an errand, and a plan that moves at half past six. Today she fits her route to the transport available. Bicing can fit itself to her route instead.

Home
Work
Gym
Friends
Family
Health
Leisure
Home

The route graphic from the proposal. One flexible line, drawn once per journey, never the same shape twice.

Do not turn her into a cyclist. Fit Bicing into the day she already has.

Win the regular trips, and the changes of plan.

Make Bicing one more ordinary way of crossing Barcelona, not an activity reserved for people who call themselves cyclists.

A system borrowed from the street

Barcelona already has a visual language for getting around: the signage, the roundels, Helvetica Neue on red. A new one would put Bicing in competition with the modes it should be sitting next to. So the system borrows instead of inventing.

Four elements. The module comes from the Bicing mark. The grid repeats at the rhythm of an Eixample block, chamfered corners and streets included. The station is the service as it appears in the street. The red line is the route, and it changes shape every time.

Everyday moduleUrban gridPublic infrastructurePersonal route

The four system elements, rebuilt from the original artwork. The route line is what carries between them.

Colour and type do the sorting

Red is reserved for the route and for anything belonging to Bicing. Everything else stays asphalt black, white and infrastructure grey, so the route is always the thing that reads first.

Helvetica Neue is already the typeface of Barcelona's transport signage. Bold carries the claims, regular carries station names and times. Nothing here needs to be invented for the campaign to look like it belongs.

#DF2935

Bicing redRoute, action, brand

#1C1C1C

AsphaltBackground, contrast, night

#FFFFFF

WhiteType, nodes, contrast

#747474

Infrastructure greyGrid, existing networks, secondary information

Photography without the costume

Women dressed for where they are going, not for a ride. Natural light and real contrast, including traffic lights, stations and night. No posing, no eye contact, no hero framing. The bicycle stays a tool and never becomes the subject.

The frames below are references from the proposal. The shoot itself would happen in Barcelona.

Woman in everyday clothes cycling through a busy city junction — Reference image. Everyday clothes and movement that feels observed, not staged.

Cyclist travelling down a Barcelona street at night under traffic lights — Reference image. Available light, city contrast and the route after dark.

Copy that describes a moment, not a benefit

The lines stay in Catalan, stay short, and read closer to a notification than a slogan. They talk about time and small decisions. The claim closes the idea rather than explaining it.

Mitja hora.: Half an hour.
El camí de tornada.: The way back.
Avui, pel parc.: Today, through the park.
Has canviat de plans.: You have changed your plans.
Encara hi ets a temps.: You are still in time.

Applications

The poster names the two stops and the time of the trip it belongs to, so the route on the image is a specific journey rather than decoration. The same system runs on the front panel of the bikes, where the rider chooses between electric and mechanical.

Quatre braçades abans de sopar? La Maria fa seva mitja hora. *Four laps before dinner? Maria makes half an hour her own.*

Woman riding a shared bicycle through a park — Quatre braçades abans de sopar? La Maria fa seva mitja hora. *Four laps before dinner? Maria makes half an hour her own.*

Two bike front panels: Elèctrica in red and Mecànica in white, both carrying the Bicing mark and the route line

Front panels, taken from the original artwork. Elèctrica and Mecànica are the two bike types a rider picks between at the dock, and the line carries across both.

What is unresolved

This was a two week course project, so there are no campaign results behind it. Three things would need answering before it went any further.

The stop and time format was designed on a screen. A bus shelter gets about two seconds.
Bus, metro and Bicing all lead with red. The campaign may need a second identifier to stay recognisably Bicing.
Nothing here has been tested with the audience it describes.