Designed by Sarah: 2024 Year in Review

This email has 4 cool projects from 2024, a promo code, and 2 things I'm looking forward to in 2025.

January 07, 2025

This email usually has studio updates, neat aminal facts, and funding opportunities, but since it’s the end of the year I wanted to do a quick recap with some of my favorite projects I got to work on (ok I’ll still include some funding opps, too).

Warmly,
Sarah

👉 Internal Board Game for Facebook UX Researchers

I’ve been working with Facebook UXR since about 2016, designing a lot of user journey maps and other research-supporting ephemera. This spring we were getting ready to embark on the latest journey map project, and in the middle of reviewing all of the research I stopped short and said: “honestly, this flow sounds sort of like a game?” My client, in an incredible display of trust, said “Ok! Go for it.” I came back with a deeply unhinged sketch of how this game could work, and we refined it into a real-life, playable and useful board game that we produced for researchers in the different FB offices.

I really, really loved working on this project in 2024 and am already pitching some other game-y activities for 2025. Every update the team shared from playtesting in their office filled me with so much joy! More, please!

👉 Center for Civic Innovation’s Website

I shared this project recently, but it was a crucially important one to work on this year – we originally tried to tackle this project in 2020 but it lost steam for a lot of reasons (including COVID), so it’s hard to express how grateful I was to be able to take another crack at it and see this complex and satisfying project over the finish line.

The best part? Attending their major awards ceremony a few weeks ago, sitting in the back out of the way, and seeing dozens of people pull up the new website during the event so they could donate to CCI. Makes my heart feel full to see such a big, immediate impact.

👉 Neighborhood Nexus’ Data Breakfast Club

This might sound silly coming from me, but I’ve never considered myself an extremely strong illustrator (no really, I’m not). I always feel like it’s “not good enough” or “I’m not doing it right,” so when Neighborhood Nexus initially reached out to me to do the art for their new breakfast series, I was a little hesitant. “Ugh, what if it looks like shit” is what was floating around in my head.

I ended up having so much fun with the illustrations (finding ways to turn nearly every shape into a chart somehow so that it still makes up an image), but also loving the chance to get to do multiple of them. I loved the chance to flex and explore with these posters, and am stoked to continue working on these in 2025!

👉 The Digest now has over 200 users!

Early in 2024 I built and launched a web platform based on a group email I was running by hand with friends for all of 2023 – simple 1 sentence updates about how things are going, shared with only your friends via email. No ads, no algorithms, ever. It originally cost $6 one-time to join, but I know that’s still a leap for a lot of people who’ve never tried it.

From now until January 31, you can get a free year of The Digest with code digest2025. Give it a try, I think you’ll really like it.

My friend Renna has been using The Digest since the beginning, and she says: “I love The Digest because it allows me to keep up with the people I care about without all the noise and distractions of other social media apps.”

Here’s what I’m looking forward to in 2025 (if I say it here to you I have to do it, that’s the rule):

  • I finally got a Riso printer and am excited to make some beautiful stuff with it. So far, we’ve experimented with color-separated photographs, menus, and gift cards and I hope friends and collaborators are able to play as well! (Just don’t look too closely at those bar charts in the sample below)

  • Designing more (board) games: This year I designed the board game for Facebook UXR, but I also made this ridiculous game about Atlanta’s water pipes exploding back in May (and was ultimately picked up by Axios). I have a huge list of games about Atlanta I want to make next… but need to find some time! Want to make games with me? Reply to this email.

I give away a $1500 grant to artists once a year but want to help you find funding opportunities all the time. It can be hard to find opportunities that seem interesting and also reasonable (I don't personally think it's a great use of time to apply to some global program with 400,000 other applicants). Here are some with that in mind:

The Aperture Foundation Portfolio
Funding: $3,000
Deadline: January 10, 2025
Eligibility: Photographers who have not yet published a book

Cultural Development Fund (CDF) Artist Grant 
Funding: Up to $10,000
Deadline: Ongoing

Southern Prize for Visual Arts
Funding: $5,000 to $30,000
Deadline: January 15, 2025

Coming soon: Longer, searchable list on my website. Stay tuned!

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Hey! Thank you for reading. It means a lot to have this email in your inbox.

Coming soon: If you like this email and want to upgrade to a paid subscription, you’ll be automatically on the list to receive something whenever I make a zine, a hair claw, a postcard set, a newspaper, collab with an artist, or any number of things I like to make/do throughout the year (not a discount code, the actual thing).

Think about it like a prepay/permanent first dibs (so like, you would have gotten some neat, recent swag before I even posted it). Postage is expensive and I want to make sure you want to receive what I am sending!

Things I’ve sent in the past:

Ridiculous interactive board game postcards that use AR

Silly bumper stickers (and other stickers from other artists)

Issues of Unfolded, my quarterly-ish newspaper about creativity