The Illustrating Mindfulness package is an educational toolkit made up of learning aids that use strong visual language to help teachers and parents introduce the idea of mindfulness to young children. 

Mindfulness, originally a Buddhist practice, is becoming widely recognized in mainstream culture for its contribution to stress-reduction and to both physical and mental health. From a young age, children learn how the human body works, how number and writing systems work, and how society works. What they often do not learn is how their own minds work: how they experience emotion, develop habits and control focus. Mindfulness equips children with the tools they need to deal with stress and to process emotions.

I developed the Illustrating Mindfulness system as part of my bachelor thesis work at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK), with the goal of creating a unique visual language and set of teaching aids that are equally suitable for children and their teachers and parents. The educational system consists of three parts: a children’s picture book and accompanying guide for adults, an interactive workbook for children, and a deck of activity cards.

My task during this project was to create the corporate identity and product packaging for Sara, a fictional company serving as a pattern for the development of sustainable business in India.

Sara is a cooperative for the production of plant essences for traditional Tibetan medicine. The cooperative believes in holistic healing and the importance of spiritual wellbeing. My goal was to develop a memorable identity for Sara based on the values and culture they represent.

A main concept of Tibetan medicine is the Five Elements that make up the body, which must be balanced for optimum health. Because of this, I developed a product line consisting of five different plant essences, each representing an element. Each category of product was given a unique mandala design that represents the elemental nature of the product. The use of the Buddhist tradition of mandalas reflects the spiritual values that create the basis of Sara’s ethos.

In the fourteenth century, builders in present-day Windisch, Switzerland, uncovered remains of mosaic flooring and Roman coins: the first signs of the Roman legionary camp of Vindonissa. Ever since this first discovery, the land in Windisch has been yielding Roman treasures, slowly revealing the story of Vindonissa and the legionary soldiers who lived there.

One of the most important archaeological finds is the large collection of wooden tablets, bearing the remnants of letters written to and by the soldiers of the Roman legions at Vindonissa. These letters, although fragmental and challenging to decipher, provide an intimate view of the lives of the residents of Vindonissa.

The purpose of the book Letters from the Roman Empire provides information about Vindonissa, its function and its history, as well as a catalogue of the 70 legible letters found at the site, written in Latin with first-time English translations.

This project was a labour of love, since it combined my love of editorial design with my passion for history and archaeology. The content was created through in-depth research, with the help of the Gesellschaft Pro Vindonissa. The design reflects traditional archaeological catalogues through its clean, straightforward layout, but with modern touches in the margins and footnotes.

In the summer of 2014 I participated in the “Summerpreneur Program” through the Impact Hub Zurich, which matches interns with cutting-edge start-ups in Zurich. I was hired by Adaptricity, a spinoff company of the ETH University, which creates tools to facilitate the transition to sustainable energy production.

While Adaptricity already had a logo, they required marketing materials and a visual language that would carry across all materials produced, both print and online. My job was to update and unify their communications strategy by creating a corporate visual language.

I continued to work with the Adaptricity team as a part-time in-house designer responsible for creating communications materials. The materials that I have developed include: brochures, corporate presentations for pitch events and competitions, a roll-up poster for conferences, graphics for an explainer video, posters, and a company letterhead.

In 2013, I had the opportunity to participate in a competition to design the poster for the 2014 Langnau Jazz Festival. My work was selected as one of the three finalists.

I wanted to bring the theme of be-bop jazz to the forefront in this poster. I used old jazz record sleeves to build a collage that contained relevant information about the festival. The collage also reflected the multidimensional atmosphere of a jazz festival, with its varied music, variety of bands, and colourful mix of people from all walks of life.

The goal of this project was to design a poster showing the workflow used by the printing company Druckerei Odermatt. I travelled to the printers to learn about the process used to manage and organize orders, and to carry out printing. I then mapped out the process and created an infographic to visually clarify the print workflow to those unfamiliar with the process. My goal was that the infographic be understandable to a large audience, as well as being visually appealing, exciting and reflective of the corporate image of the Druckerei Odermatt.