Role
Org
Deliverables
Timeline
Marketing Manager / Creative Lead
SF New Deal, in partnership with SFMTA, OEWD, Visa, Wells Fargo
2,000+ transit placements across SF Muni buses, shelters, and stations
| 2 months creative strategy → 6-week production → 6-month rollout |
Context & Challenge
Vacant to Vibrant (V2V) is a program by non-profit SF New Deal reimagining empty downtown storefronts by empowering local entrepreneurs - bakers, designers, barbers, community leaders - to temporarily activate unused spaces and test long-term viability.
As Marketing Manager, my challenge was to design and launch an out-of-home campaign that honored these small business stories - not as charity or recovery, but as the pulse of a city still beating.
Objective
Tell real stories of the small business community bringing vibrancy to downtown San Francisco
Our goals were clear:
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Raise awareness of Vacant to Vibrant among residents, commuters, and tourists.
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Spotlight entrepreneurs behind each storefront in a high-visibility, low-barrier format.
- Restore civic pride in a post-COVID downtown landscape often framed in decline.
Strategy
| City as Canvas |
Human First |
Hyperlocal Design |
Warm Minimalism |
| Used Muni bus sides and bus shelters to create moving, everyday billboards. Featured real entrepreneurs - portraiture + first-person headlines - across all ads. Each ad was geo-tagged with a location or neighborhood, reinforcing connection. A soft but structured visual system with monochrome portraiture, bold sans typography, and color blocks echoing each business’ palette. |
Creative Direction
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Bold headliner copy in plainspoken, human language (e.g., “Raising up downtown, together”)
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Portraiture captured inside each V2V business - non-performative, dignified, real.
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Color palette pulled from a vibrant palette consistent with existing V2V brand
Campaign Touchpoints
| Bus Kings |
Transit Stations
Digital Support
| 1,200+ Muni buses citywide. |
In-station takeovers with campaign explainer panels and directional wayfinding to nearby V2V storefronts. Mirrored campaign on @sfnewdeal IG and @vacanttovibrant, with behind-the-scenes reels of each business. |
Results (First 3 Months)
V2V Web Traffic
Business Impact
| Est. 2.1M impressions/month |
+290% increase after campaign launch 12 activators transitioned to long-term leases following campaign rollout |
Reflection
This campaign turned public transit into public storytelling. We flipped a narrative of urban vacancy into one of creative momentum, using a calm and confident design system to cut through the visual noise of the city.
As creative GTM lead, I learned how to:
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Navigate city procurement and cross-agency approvals while protecting creative integrity
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Tell human stories at scale - without reducing them to clichés
- Design for motion, distance, and repetition - where Muni ads live fast and fade fast.
Credits
Creative Direction & GTM Strategy: Charlie Yip
Design: Felicia Liang
Photography: Charlie Yip
City/Financial Partners: SFMTA, OEWD, Visa, Wells Fargo, Chase