SARA
Designer & Artist
HOLLY
Rescue Dog & Quality Assurance Manager
About Sara
Sara MacLellan is a Toronto-based service designer, graphic designer and collage artist. She holds an MA in Graphic Design and Visual Experience from the Savannah College of Art and Design and a BFAH in Visual Arts from Queen’s University. Leveraging both her art and marketing communications background, Sara grounds her design methods and solutions in strategy, storytelling, and the lived human experience; she also pulls in unique and intentional visual treatments into her visual communication work.
Much of her personal work speaks to her curiosity of storytelling and interpersonal connection, drawing inspiration from found imagery and old family photos.
When she’s not in the office or studio, you’ll usually find her out on a run with her rescue dog, tending to her many houseplants or eating her third lunch of the day.
Design Philosophy
Design is both form and process, where successful design requires a clear function—for both form and process.
As process, it is inclusive, iterative and evolving to better match what we collectively know, do and prefer. The design process is holistic; it is a methodology for solving today’s simple and wicked problems through considering the past & present to shape the future—drive change.
As form, design is manipulative by shaping how we interact with it—how we think and feel, what we do—but also is manipulated by our expectations and past experiences. Design as form goes beyond beauty and aesthetics—it can create deep and meaningful change when done well, but it can also maintain the ease and simplicity of the everyday—often subconsciously.
Design fuses with strategic thinking to imagine possibilities to solve a problem, craft possible & successful solutions, and mould the future—one that I hope is sustainable.
Select Exhibitions
2017
WHERE IS HOME – Gallery 1313
Waving Bye Bye To Telephone Pole - '67 (Approx.) (solo) - Black Cat Gallery
2016
Salon of Inclusiveness – Black Cat Gallery
IN THE ROUND – Graven Feather
9INHANDPRESS Inaugural Print Exchange – Ruddell Gallery at Black Hill State University | Illinois State University | Library Gallery at the Printmaking Centre of New Jersey
Interiors (solo) – Baysville Public Library
2116: ART OF LEVERAGE – Gallery 1313
2015
Begin Anywhere – Queen's University
Enter the Studio – Queen's University
Cézanne's Closet – Queen's University