The San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau recently enlisted Iron to figure out a way to promote the Summer Art Exhibition Campaign in San Francisco. The overall purpose of SFCVB is to boost the local economy by selling the city to visitors as a premier destination.

Simple task, right? Attract tourists to San Francisco. Tourists get the experience of a lifetime (and spend a little cash along the way). Everybody wins. What made this project the most difficult was perhaps the incredible lineup of artists and exhibitions. So the question was, how to balance such a star-studded lineup? Take a look at what we were working with:

• Asian Art Museum – Court Arts of China’s Ming Dynasty
• Contemporary Jewish Museum – designed by renowned “starchitect” Daniel Libeskind (also designer to the new World Trade Center), opening its doors June 8
• SFMOMA – Frida Kahlo
• de Young – Chihuly
• Legion of Honor – Women Impressionists

These visiting exhibits embody an extensive range of cultures from all over the world. After digging into this project it became clear that in many ways, San Francisco already mirrors this fusion of foreign and domestic customs. Why not flip the deck on this idea – let’s present San Francisco as a piece of art in itself, and as such, the ideal host to these rich cultures.

And so…ArtSF08 was born. With a prominent media run in publications such as Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, and Los Angeles Magazine, the campaign had to appeal to the most sophisticated and well-traveled reader. The result: check it out here.