Sarah Sears
Principal
Sarah Sears, founder and principal of S Design Inc., is an award-winning branding and design professional and AIGA Fellow. Sears speaks at local and regional events effusing and evangelizing about how branding, design and marketing are catalysts for business and organizational growth.
Most recently, Sarah studied with international branding expert Marty Neumeier, earning the Brand Architect, Brand Strategist, Brand Specialist Level C Certifications. Sarah led the visual identity team of 25 talented designers through the process of creating the new Oklahoma logo and supporting visual design elements. Her work is an exercise in restrained beauty, with form hot on the heels of function.
Sarah is a gifted leader and talented designer, who approaches brand strategy with the precision of a scientist and the heart of an artist. Her systems-thinking experience and current work in human-centered design sets S Design apart. Before opening S Design, and during its first decade, Sarah was a professor of illustration and typography, sharing her craft with a new generation. She is a fine arts graduate if the University of Kansas. Her design education is rooted in the Swiss and Bauhaus style.
In 1996, Sears founded the Oklahoma chapter of The American Institute of Graphic Arts, (AIGA). She served as president from 1996-1999 and as a board member and advisor for more than a decade. She was selected for the Journal Record’s “Achievers under 40” and for “Forty under 40” in OKCBiz Magazine. Sears also received honors as a three-time finalist for the Journal Record’s Woman of the Year and was inducted into its Circle of Excellence. In 2013, Sears was honored with the Association for Women in Communications Byliner Award for Business and received the Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year by OSU’s Center for Entrepreneurship. She received honors with the 2014 Casady Alumni Achievement Award and the 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award from the KU School of Architecture and Design.