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 as a multi-media artist creates social commentary about contemporary American culture. She'll move fluidly between mediums making videos, 2-D animations, digital pieces, photography, paintings, drawings, and artist books. Current investigations include a digital series looking at pattern making’s historical relationship with women’s work and classist work; a series of gouache & graphite pieces that use the square as a vessel to represent the body and the physical and emotional tolls of aging on women’s identity and self-worth; a photographic book project titled “Planned Obsolescence” about her 365-day journey documenting the massive amounts of objects discarded and hidden in the alleys of Troy, NY; and “Sound Waves”, a series of pen & ink ocean drawings, using line to explore the environmental impact of climate change.

Ms. Tack has been exhibited worldwide at ISEA, the Museum of Art at the Dick Institute (Scotland), Nickle Arts Museum (Calgary), Vancouver Video Poem Festival, and Centro De La Imagen (Mexico City). National, regional and local gallery exhibitions include Albany Center Gallery, Art Center of the Capital Region, East End Arts Council, Gainsville Fine Arts Assoc. (FL), Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art, The Kitchen (NYC), Main Street Arts, Manifest Gallery, Opalka Gallery, Sasse Museum, Site: Brooklyn, Schweinfurth Art Center, Touchstone Gallery (D.C.), University of Michigan Street Gallery @Stamps School of Art & Design, University of North Georgia Roy C. Moore Gallery, Dane Ledet Gallery @ Nicholls State University, 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 national and international journals such as Bridge Chicago:The Bridge Journal, Passengers Quarterly, The Illanot Review, and Up the Staircase Quarterly.

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