sara tack

in no particular order: designer, art director, creative director, artist, teacher

Sara Tack co-founded and served as the EVP/Creative Director of two firms; Smith & Jones, a marketing communications agency and Wanderlust, a travel and tourism branding firm, where she was in charge of designing and implementing integrated brand identity systems.

Sara’s experience combines a range of local, regional, national and international clients, spanning multiple industries including healthcare, travel and tourism, arts, financial, beverages, education, and business to business for both public and private institutions. Her client list includes: Adidas, Albany Institute of History & Art, Cellular One, Capital Repertory Co., The Chickasaw Nation, Crane & Co., Ellis Medicine, GE, Glimmerglass Festival, Farm Family Insurance, Hart Cluett Museum, Heineken, Historic Deerfield, Howe Caverns, Hudson Valley Community College, IBM, Legacy Banks, Long Island’s South Shore Bayway, MapInfo, Michelin, Mount Snow, NYS Health Department, NYS Department of State, Pitney Bowes, Planned Parenthood, Proctor’s Theatre, Provident Bank, The Sage Colleges, Silhouette Optical, Union College, Vassar Brothers Medical Center and Windham Mountain. 

Her work has been recognized nationally receiving numerous design and marketing awards including AIGA New York State of Design, American Corporate Identity Awards, Creativity, Aster Awards, Creative Excellence in Business Advertising Awards (CEBA), Graphic Design USA, Best of Show in the Healthcare Advertising Awards, Logo Lounge, Macromedia People's Choice Award, MarCom Awards, The One Show and REBRAND 100.

Ms. Tack’s design work and writing has been published in books and online publications including American Corporate Identity, FuelYourBranding.com, Get Visual Blog Spot, Graphic Design USA, Logo Lounge Book Six and Logo Lounge Masters Library on Typography Book 4.

Sara is currently on the faculty at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the department of Communication and Media teaching courses in brand identity design, typography, motion graphics and design history. Additionally she has served as a visiting professor at The Maryland Institute College of Art, Skidmore College and Hudson Valley Community College.

Her personal work explores the materiality of language and communication through typography, and the space between the written and spoken word. She has been exhibited worldwide at ISEA, the Museum of Art at the Dick Institute (Scotland), Nickle Arts Museum (Calgary), Vancouver Video Poem Festival, Centro De La Imagen (Mexico City), The Kitchen (NYC), Site: Brooklyn, Schweinfurth Art Center, The Virginia Film Festival and more. Sara’s work is in the permanent collection of The Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University. Her pieces have been published in international journals such as The Illanot Review, and Up the Staircase Quarterly.

She holds a BFA in graphic design from Purchase College and an MFA in integrated electronic arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.