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Portfolio

Hello! My name is Meri Sanders and I am a Senior Design student at Freestyle Academy. Throughout my two years at Freestyle, I have produced a number of projects that showcase my skills in graphic design, photography, writing, fine arts, etc., and my pieces often relate to personal stories as well as my interests. At Los Altos High School, I am an AP Studio Art student where I have continued to develop my fine art skills. I am also the co-founder, President, and Senior Art Director of Savvy Zine, an all-inclusive digital magazine made to support and uplift student art and writing in and beyond the Bay Area.

For my Portfolio, I am excited to share with you my Movie Poster, my Product Design Project which I further developed outside of class, my Magazine Advertisement for my product, and my Zenith Project. I chose these projects because I feel that they best represent my current skillset in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign as well as my skills with physical media like fabric. They also are my favorite projects because I feel that my personality and design style are showcased in a way that if you only saw these pieces, you would know a lot about me!

This Fall I will be starting my freshman year at the Rhode Island School of Design where I plan to pursue Graphic Design. I am extremely excited to live and grow as an artist and student in Providence, Rhode Island, and I cannot wait to see where this incredible opportunity takes me.

Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my work.

You can reach me at meris@freestyleacademy.rocks or merisanders7@gmail.com


Below is the moodboard I designed before creating my final product which shows my sources of inspiration, font, and color scheme.

Movie Poster Moodboard
Final Movie Poster

My make-believe movie takes inspiration from my personal interest in becoming a production designer for film and television in the future. The main character is a girl who wants to grow up to be a production designer and she has a journal where she always draws or writes own her ideas. One morning she wakes up and her journal is missing, only to find that her ideas have become a reality. She must go on a journey alongside her friends and her dog to find her journal in order for her to restore the universe.

For my movie poster, I used Adobe Illustrator where I designed every individual object and recolored them according to my color scheme to show a sense of balance and unity. I chose to illustrate an array of objects floating around her because production designers are responsible for designing the sets and overall production of the movie in order for the environment to properly showcase the mood or character, which is what I did here.

The title of the movie, Cyclorama, is a term used in the film industry to describe a panoramic image used as a backdrop to create the illusion of a certain setting which I found is fitting considering the theme of my movie.


Below is the moodboard I designed before creating my final product which shows my sources of inspiration, font, and color scheme.

Product Moodboard
Final Product Triptych

For this project, the prompt was to design a fake brand for a food-related item and I chose to create a Tea brand titled Unitea. Though the initial prompt was to only make one product, I challenged myself to make two more kinds of tea all within the same brand since I wanted to further develop this project for my college portfolio.

The purpose of my brand is to unite the world by celebrating the unique plants grown all throughout the globe. The three different types of tea I created designs for are all naturally grown from different countries which shows the emphasis on unity and sustainability.

I began by designing my logo in Adobe Illustrator which is supposed to resemble a stamp you would find on a letter. I then moved on to the pattern design for each individual box where I created a simple illustration of each plant and repeated it several times to display a sense of unity within the package itself. I finally added the labels which each state the tea type and where it comes from and then I edited it all together using a mockup website.

Final Magazine Advertisement

In addition to my triptych, I designed a Magazine Advertisement for Unitea. While I was unable to take all of the photos myself, I relied on Pexels, a website with free downloadable images to use. I utilized Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign for this project.

The base of the background, as well as the teacup, were made using Photoshop which I then brought into InDesign for layout purposes. I then used Adobe Illustrator to make the text and edit the images flowing out of the teacup. Finally, I used grids and rulers to make sure all of the elements were placed evenly and added the center shadow to help visualize how this piece would look in a magazine.


For my Zenith, I chose this as my project because it enabled me to combine my interests in Design and Film together and allowed me to learn new skills. It also challenged me to rethink how to produce an illustration, I am used to using mediums such as colored pencil and paint but using fabric was a challenge that I wanted to overcome.

My inspiration for this project comes from Martin Smatana, an artist and Illustrator based in Slovakia who primarily works in fabric and paper to create his work. His book titled, “A Year of Good News” highlights positive stories he learned about despite the whole world being on lockdown due to COVID. I was inspired by his ability to bring joy to people’s faces in a time of chaos for so many so I knew I wanted to do the same.

Rather than focusing on real stories, I chose to have my illustrations resemble scenes and character-related objects from my make-believe movie, Cyclorama (shown at the top of this page). The story follows a young girl (whose career goals are inspired by my own) who wants to grow up to become a production designer and always has her idea journal filled with her drawings and notes. One day she wakes up to find that the journal is missing and that her drawings and ideas had become a reality so she must go on a journey to find the journal in order for her to restore the universe.

Zenith Moodboard
Final Illustration: Character Pack
Illustration: Bedrooms Sketch
Final Illustration: Bedrooms
Illustration: End Scene Sketch
Final Illustration: End Scene

I ended up producing three illustrations: a character pack for the main character, the bedrooms/setting of the protagonist and her two best friends, and the final scene with all three characters where they find the journal.

I encountered several ups and downs with this project, my biggest struggle was timing. I had intended to go much further with this project than I did, I wanted to create a fourth illustration, animate portions of them, and design my own patterns. I ended up not being able to get to that point because I was so consumed by cutting and gluing the fabric for three illustrations alone along with all my other school work.

Reflection: Though it didn’t end up being exactly what I had in mind, I am still really proud of my end result. I feel that this was an extremely fun and experimental project that pushed me creatively, I had to learn how to create depth using only fabric and felt and I had to make each illustration cohesive in terms of color with the limited amount of colors of felt I had.

I hope you like my project! Below is my Zenith Presentation.

Zenith Presentation