Charles Rubinoff

Overview

The San Francisco Welcome Ambassadors—a program created in 2021 to welcome and offer helpful information to visitors—needed a visual identity to establish trust and stand out from the crowd.

Background

As downtown San Francisco struggled to reinvigorate its downtown and nearby tourism hotspots after the worst of the pandemic, a program was created to welcome locals back to the office, answer questions, and repot incidents of negative street conditions. The City funded a program, originally set for two-years but still running, that created this team and named it the San Francisco Welcome Ambassadors.

Goal

Create an identity for this new team that helped it not only project a sense of immediate legitimacy and authority, but also stand out from similar neighborhood ambassador programs and also everyday people also walking the streets of San Francisco.

Challenges

Nearby neighborhoods had similar, smaller-scale programs already established and featuring vibrant uniforms. The San Francisco Welcome Ambassadors needed to stand out from those similar groups and also project an identity conveying approachability to everyone from locals to international visitors speaking other languages.

Additionally, the identity developed had to work acoss a variety of mediums—from outdoor wear to flyers to a web presence. 

Solution

We decided to leverage the strength of San Francisco Travel Association as a resource for tourism by featuring a similar primary brand color—orange. The pin marker shape suggests an association with a particular location and the Golden Gate Bridge makes that connection immediately recognizable and aligned to San Francisco. Additional uniform adornments, such as information icon “i” patches and “Ask Me” pins have helped further support the team’s approachability.

This logo works at scale, from a social media icon to a large jacket graphic. The primary brand color worked as a bold accent feature on collateral such as onesheets and online toolkits for partner organizations.

Impact

The San Francisco Welcome Ambassadors has been an incredibly successful program that has helped thousands of visitors, earned wide acclaim, and continues strong both today and going forward with support from the City. The program’s director, Mandy Hall, has noted the positive feedback on the team’s distinctive uniform.

Learnings

The branding of the San Francisco Welcome Ambassadors was been a source of strength in the success of the program. Unfortunately, in 2025, the city lacked the funding to continue this program. The success during its tenure, however, was a reminder to take creative risks and stand out with a bold identity.