When Jesse McMillin joined Virgin America in 2007 as their in-house design director, the small airline company was in a tenuous position: They had just begun flying two months prior, but most American travelers hadn't heard of them. Seven years later, and Virgin has carved out a reputation as an fun-loving travel company—thanks to splashy safety videos and purple in-flight mood lighting—among a sea of staid, beige-seeming airlines.

Car-sharing service Lyft is in a similar position today: “I see it as the underdog,” McMillin tells WIRED. Likewise, at Virgin, “compared to legacy airlines, we were a small force and had a lot less resources. The task at hand was to take ownership of the Virgin brand.” That's why last week Lyft announced McMillin will be joining the San Francisco company as their first ever creative director. "My job," he says, "is to improve how Lyft is presented to the outside world." In short, McMillin is going to help Lyft come of age.

Lyft launched in 2012, about two years after Uber began operating. If there’s a David and Goliath analogy to be made here, then Lyft is surely the David, and Uber the Goliath. Lyft’s latest round of funding snagged the company $250 million; Uber recently scored $1.2 billion from investors and is valued at a berserk $18 billion. Lyft is in 67 cities; Uber is in 150 around the world.

Lyft's current brand ambassador. Cool for some, but maybe too kitschy for others? Lyft

That said, Lyft isn’t exactly chasing Uber—other than the fundamental service that's provided (a car ride) the two are totally different businesses. Because Lyft’s drivers are regular folks who own cars, not professional town car drivers, the company’s ethos is more in line with that of Airbnb, whose recent design overhaul emphasizes human interaction and community above the commodity of a well-furnished bedroom. While Uber remains steadfastly data-driven, Lyft wants to preserve those feel-good vibes—which are perhaps best symbolized by the flamboyant furry pink mustaches that bedeck their cars. At the same time, those mustaches have also come to symbolize a company that might not have quite the appeal in self-serious New York as it does in the zany, Burning Man—obsessed Bay Area. It's no accident that Lyft's new premium service, Lyft Plus, revolves around customized white Ford Explorers with tiny metal mustaches, and no pink in sight.

So how does Lyft grow up while remaining as distinct as possible from Uber?

A Smart Strategy for Crafting an Image

That’s where McMillin comes in. At Virgin, he looked for what he calls “easy wins,” or user touch points that could earn a lot of attention with just a little revamping. So instead of zeroing in on expensive infrastructure problems like seat configuration and inches-per-person, McMillin targeted light fixtures, custom-made cups, and in-flight videos—details that cost little to change, but spoke volumes to customers. “Most of the different vendors looked at cups like a throwaway product, and took the thing off the shelf and slapped their logo on it,” he says. “But that cup project—to design the new shape and put something a little more interesting together—besides the initial design and ideation, there wasn’t really any cost difference. Those are the types of things that people identify with, because every single passenger gets a drink.”

Looking for customers who might ordinarily use Uber, Lyft recently rolled out Lyft Plus, which features customized white Ford Explorers and discreet mustaches made of steel. Lyft

Under McMillin, Virgin also (with design help from Work & Co) gave their digital booking site a mobile-centric facelift. It’s animated, easy to use, and probably the best clue for divining McMillin’s plans for Lyft. “It’s a challenger brand to a challenger brand,” he tells WIRED, going back to Lyft's relationship to Uber. “It’s a challenger with a ton of potential, and with the right image crafting and selection of products [we can] position ourselves at Lyft to be an equal and different option.” Those products, at least in the beginning, will likely be bigger, bolder advertising and a reconsidered digital experience. "So far it’s been through word of mouth, the app, and press," he says. "There hasn’t been a ton of messaging, marketing, to craft an interesting way that the brand can be presented."

In particular, McMillin is interested in leveraging the Lyft.com home space to strengthen the Lyft community. By building in a novel social layer, Lyft could keep its neighborly identity, but mature past silly pink mustache decals (a feature McMillin says sparked plenty of interest, but also "offered up a real challenge") and fratty fist bumps. This has the potential to change how we think about modern-day transportation. “By building up profiles, and enhancing preferences, you could change how you use the service,” he says. “Maybe it’s not just by the driver that’s closest to you, but by someone you’ve driven with before. There are ways to position that differently.”

And as for that "challenging" pink mustache? It's not going anywhere, though McMillin does hint that it will probably evolve dramatically. "It’s polarizing, but it causes noise," McMillin says. “There are different ways you might execute the power of an icon. We’ll be thinking about the next life of the mustache.”