Sarah Belay

New York–based designer working in branding, editorial, and art direction. A graduate of Parsons School of Design with a background in global health from USC, I approach design through systems thinking and close observation, emphasizing clarity and precision. Previously with Arc and Bow and The New School.

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Recent Projects

Cultural Overlays: Visual Tensions in African Life
Book Design
2026

This project explores how Western cultural exports, from Coca-Cola branding to American streetwear, are absorbed and recontextualized within Sub-Saharan African countries. Through found photography and collage, it documents the visual reality of globalization and the unequal flow of global cultural power. 

It is less about critique and more about observation, noticing what happens when objects, symbols, and aesthetics designed for one world land in another and start to take on new meaning. Western brands carry connotations of aspiration, modernity, and economic power, and when they settle into the texture of everyday Sub-Saharan life, visual tensions become visible. 



Cracks in Pomo: the zine Art Direction, Editorial Design
2026
Role: Sole Designer

Designed the print zine for Volume IV of Cracks in Postmodernity (styled "cracks in pomo"), an independent publication that offers ironic, culturally subversive commentary on the postmodern condition, focusing on aesthetics, culture, and ontology. Led the visual direction, layout, and typographic system for the issue, translating the publication's provocative editorial voice into a cohesive print object.

Pictures by Jacob Anthony Amaro and Davion Cottrell


Ghenet
Branding, Art Direction
2024

An imagined rebrand of the Brooklyn-based Ethiopian restaurant Ghenet.  The project explores how traditional Ethiopian culture, from textiles and ceremonial attire to the expressive qualities of Ge’ez letterforms, can inform a modern visual identity. 

ARCH Magazine
Editorial Design
2026

An editorial centered on exploring architecture through the spaces that shape daily life: Where We Dwell, Where We Gather, and Where We Move. Each issue examines how the built environment holds and shapes these spaces, and interrogates the role architecture plays in making them possible.


Letters from the Ether
Book Design
2024

An experimental typographic exploration that uses letterforms as both message and medium to investigate the ethereal nature of dreams. By treating text as a visual element, the design mirrors the fragmented, layered, and often disorienting experience of dreaming. Words emerge, distort, and fade like half-remembered impressions, slipping between clarity and obscurity.



Responsive Wilting
Interaction Design
2024

An interactive web project that uses CSS media queries to create a time-lapse of a flower's lifecycle. As users resize their browser viewport, they witness the transition of a flower from its initial bloom through various stages of wilting.     




Ephemeral Records of Urban Life
Book Design
2024

What gets left behind in the streets of New York City? What do you walk past without second thought? 

An archive containing 101 records of discarded objects and visual markings left behind in New York public spaces. I explored the ways people leave traces of themselves behind in urban environments, whether through intentional expression or accidental remains. Each neighborhood was assigned a distinct color code, with the records' captions capturing what is depicted in the image.



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