In fall 2024, Civic Edge started working with the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management (DEM) on ReadySF, a rebranded identity for the city’s emergency preparedness communications and outreach. The project included a new logo, tagline, brand guidelines, communications strategy and a complete website redesign.
Central to our team’s work strategy was to make emergency preparedness approachable, manageable, and affordable. The resulting campaign focused on putting people and community first while making it easier to take action toward emergency preparedness.
To make emergency preparedness less daunting, we created a five-step framework people could follow: sign up for alerts, make a plan, gather supplies, get connected, get trained. These steps set up opportunities for engagement and behavioral shift at multiple levels of involvement. The supporting messaging emphasized the ways that people are more prepared than they may think. To counter perceptions of emergency preparedness as requiring special or expensive supplies, we replaced prescriptive photos with icons to dispel ideas of what preparedness “should” look like and highlight instead personal needs.
The new website (sf.gov/ReadySF) went live in April 2025, shortly after the anniversary of San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake. The launch was announced in a Mayor’s Office press release and covered by local news outlets CBS and KPIX.