Vision
“I love going out of my way, beyond what I know, and finding my way back a few extra miles, by another trail, with a compass that argues with the map.”
—— Rebecca Solnit
As a designer, writer and inner-world explorer, Sarah believes in the power of applied creativity within organizations to bring forth lasting, positive social change. With an expansive approach and academic training in film, fine art, fashion design and social work, her multi-decade career spans both the public and private sectors.
Currently a designer at Apple focused on health and wellbeing, Sarah is led by her empathetic vision for a more equitable regenerative future. As a leader and dynamic facilitator of collaborative efforts, Sarah has seen the value of design to be a co-creative force in aligning diverse thinkers towards opportunities and solutions they collectively want. Whether as an IBM Distinguished Designer or volunteer advisor to the Ukraine Veteran Hub, Sarah is continually evolving her practice, utilizing qualitative research that leads to unique insights, speculative fictions to explore paths from the present and take action toward particular futures, enhanced design of digital and in-person services, and toolkits tailored to support an organization’s ability to more effectively scale the impact of design.
[Taken in Santa Cruz, California, 2022]
About
An executive design leader across a broad range of Fortune 500, startup, non-profit and foundation clients, Sarah has led multidisciplinary teams creating products and services, growing design practices and scaling design education efforts.
Sarah’s public service began in the Obama/Biden Administration as a Presidential Innovation Fellow, then political appointee cofounder of the Veterans Experience Office and the first cabinet-level federal agency Chief Design Officer in U.S. history at the Department of Veterans Affairs. She worked with the Future of Fish team to strengthen the sustainable global seafood supply chain, led a team of design researchers to support the State of Rhode Island’s second wave Covid response and has facilitated numerous workshops for public-private partnership efforts.
As the founder and leader of a Design For Social Impact practice at Hot Studio in San Francisco, Sarah led project and coaching engagements with meaningful social enterprises across cultural institutions, food systems and venture accelerators including AlterEco, Code For America, Contemporary Jewish Museum, Impact Hub, Mozilla Foundation, PopTech, Shareable, Skoll Foundation, SOCAP and Tipping Point Community.
[Taken in Ojai, California, 2022]
Design Community
Sarah has been actively involved with design practice communities including serving on the National and San Francisco Board of Directors for AIGA, the professional association for design, the largest and most established design organization globally. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and an active member of the Service Design Network, EPIC, Regenerates, and the Association of Professional Futurists.
Sarah has had a longstanding commitment to education and mentoring the next generations of designers which she continues through the Adobe Design Circle and a broad network of individuals. She has served on numerous juries including the SAPPI Ideas That Matter award, CCA Center For Art and Public Life’s Impact Awards, and Core 77’s Design Education Initiative award.
[Taken in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2019]
Teaching
Sarah has held faculty and visiting lecturer positions at the Stanford University d. School, Art Center, Brown University, CCA, Centro Diseño, MICA, Parsons School of Design New School, School of Visual Arts and Wesleyan University. She regularly guest lectures and speaks with global groups on issues of design leadership, applied creativity, social design, large-scale systems change, strategic foresight, and building design cultures.
[Taken in Woodacre, California, 2022]
Press
Sarah’s work has been profiled by The New York Times, Adobe XD Ideas, Clever Podcast, Communication Arts, Fast Company, Forrester, FedScoop, It’s About Time Podcast and the recent book, Changemakers By Design, among others.
Sarah has guest edited three issues of the Design Management Institute’s quarterly publication dmi:review on the topics of Design For Social Innovation, Government and Design and Civic Design Then & Now, blogged for PopTech and the movement building organization, Shareable. Sarah has contributed chapters to the books Leap Dialogues and Strategic Design Thinking and is currently working on a narrative non-fiction novel.
[Taken in Blue Lagoon, Iceland, 2014]