SF Mayor Taps Powell Jobs, Jony Ive for City Branding
San Francisco Mayor London Breed is collaborating with Laurene Powell Jobs and former Apple designer Jony Ive on a confidential branding initiative for the city. The project is intended to help improve San Francisco's public image. Details of the initiative have not been publicly disclosed.
- Jony Ive's San Francisco-based creative firm, LoveFrom, works with clients including Airbnb and Ferrari, and is collaborating with OpenAI to develop a new family of AI-enabled products. - Laurene Powell Jobs' organization, the Emerson Collective, is a for-profit limited liability company that functions as a hybrid venture capital fund and philanthropic grantmaker, focusing on areas like climate, education, and immigration. - This initiative follows other recent efforts to counter negative national media narratives about San Francisco's public safety, homelessness, and downtown vacancies. - Another recent campaign, "It All Starts Here SF," was backed by $4 million from tech billionaires Chris Larsen and Bob Fisher of Gap to fund murals and ads promoting civic pride. - A recent LoveFrom project involved designing the interior for Ferrari's first electric car, where Ive and his partner Marc Newson deliberately prioritized physical, mechanical controls over the large touchscreens that dominate most EV interiors. - Powell Jobs was appointed co-chair of The Partnership for San Francisco in March 2025, an organization of major employers focused on the city's economic future. - Ive's firm LoveFrom is establishing a significant physical presence in San Francisco, reportedly investing $90 million in four buildings in the Jackson Square neighborhood to create the company's new studio and campus.
