Charles Rubinoff

Overview

San Francisco Travel Association does a great job of making art accessible to visitors and part of that effort includes helpful neighborhood maps and printed brochures. Showcasing eight neighborhoods across the city, these brochures feature large photos, details on the artwork listed, and clear information on how to visit these pieces both renown and local gems. It was a challenge on a few to fit all the content, but we made it work and kept a consistent, branded design throughout.

I worked with our Director of Arts Marketing to select content and then designed these brochures for a fresh new look and helping to facilitate each access to San Francisco’s arts and cultural attractions.

Background

A previous version of these Arts & Culture maps were around for a while, feeling dated, and we had significant new content to present for collateral updates.

Goal

The purpose of these brochure was to increase awareness and visitation (booked visits or longer stays) to San Francisco using the arts as attractions. These brochures were also a great way of giving our partners additional exposure and highlights through featured images.

I wanted to redesign these brochures to have greater visual consistency throughout, yet still reflect the particular neighborhoods they were about.

Challenges

These brochures were presented in various ways—from stacks on tables at places like museums to brochure racks at visitor information centers. We needed a design that would catch eyes no matter how visitors encountered them.

Solution

I created a new design that put the neighborhood in large type at the top of the brochure so a visitor could easily browse the variety offered if seeing these in a brochure rack. Immediately below the title is a large photo showing a popular piece from the particular neighborhood.

The inside spread features the selected works listed with contact information and a large map to the right to find each piece in the City.

Other information, such as details on Visitor Information Centers and public transit is displayed consistently through each of the eight brochures.

Impact

These brochures have been well-received and are currently available in museums, visitor centers around San Francisco, and even SFO as well. We’ve had requests for additional print runs. The arts in San Francisco remain a significant draw in tourism and our arts-based campaigns have generated incredible numbers on engagement and room night bookings.

Learnings

There was so much information we had to be a bit selective and prioritize according to visitor impact and partner status in some cases. This was a good lesson in those and how to include all necessary content while maintaining readability and design best practices as well.