CONGRATULATIONS to the 1,061 businesses that are part of our 2026 Best of the County! If you are one of these businesses, your company had to get at least 10 votes to stay on the list. These small and large companies range from architect firms to nail salons; together they make Marin County the best place to live.
Once the dust settles (post happy dance), we’d love to learn more about you and your team. Last year, we got a few awesome videos sent to us from Cue the Core, Dynamic Energy Crystals, Lifehouse, Orange Theory Greenbrae, Metta Yoga and Love Living Lighter. You can see them on our YouTube channel, and if you scroll back on Marin Magazine’s Instagram. This year, we’d love to get more. Don’t worry about hiring a professional film crew — it’s simply fun to see people opening their doors and introducing themselves. We plan to share these throughout the year.
We hope you love the cover as much as we do. Local artist and Mill Valley native Dave Urban started working with Liz, our Art Director, on this concept at the beginning of last year, and we love the results. I hope you like the cute red bird that can be spotted in a few places. Liz moved it there from another part of the map early on, and we all became attached.
Another fun item to look for are the names of Dave’s daughters Kate and Cal. Kate is one of our interns this summer (check out her photo with her dad from the Cavallo Point Kickoff party on page 132). Dave has done many amazing illustrations for us through the years, including Angel Island, Mount Tam and Point Reyes for our summer guides. When he came into the office last spring, he told us a little secret that in every single illustration he adds his daughters’ names. So here’s a fun game — we challenge you to find Dave’s little Easter eggs and email us a photo to editorial@marinmagazine.com. The first person who succeeds will get a signed map from Dave!
Along with the cover, you’ll find our new official Best of the County logo. In the 12 years of this feature, we’ve had about nine different logos — not optimal for branding. Hence, Dave was also asked to create a reusable memorable brand. Curious about the past options? Managing Editor Emma Robertson pulled together a history of the Best of the County, which puts our former lack of foresight and marketing acumen on display — it’s a fun read.
There was no question that we would use a real human to create our cover art. However, we did successfully lean into AI to help decipher the various write-ins at the beginning of the year, as well as a couple of otherspreadsheet tasks. As publishers we are aware that everything we’ve created is being utilized to answer user questions about Marin, or anything from our sister publications, and are now leaning in to utilize AI to help us, not distract us. We’d love to hear from you about ways that you might have found Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini have helped to streamline your life or business. As always, we love hearing from you via email and on the socials. Cheers to the Best County on the planet!
We’d love to hear from you! Contact us at editorial@marinmagazine.com.
Also in this issue you’ll find:
Harbor Porpoises Return to San Francisco Bay: Where to Spot Them in Marin
A Colossal Artwork That Almost Wasn’t: The Man Who Kept “Running Fence” Running
A Marin Homecoming: Rediscovering the Marin Headlands on Horseback
A Conversation with Derek Johnson, the County Executive for Marin
Vanessa Hua’s Ambitious Coyoteland Reflects a Topsy Turvy World
