Bolton Design Creates Compelling Referral Piece

Over Valentine's Day, I received this gorgeous marketing piece from my trusty graphic designers, Tracey and Nat, at Bolton Design. I was blown away!! So much so, that I immediately called Tracey to get the full story on the concept.

Happily, she was willing to share the whole story on the creation and execution of their "Refer Your Love" marketing campaign.

"For the past couple of years we had been toying around with ideas on how to ask our Clients for referrals in a creative and fun way. But, it wasn't until reading a case study about a Refer Your Love promo campaign in The Designer's Guide to Marketing and Pricing, by Peleg Top and Ilise Benun that our idea really gelled.

Since Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year fell on the same day this year we combined themes from both traditions into a unique seasonal promotion. We selected the color palette, hot pink and white. We found hot pink take out containers and filled them with custom fortune cookies. The raspberry colored and flavored fortune cookies perfectly matched the containers and were stuffed with custom messages we crafted ourselves:

Bolton Design hearts you.
The first step to a better brand is to imagine it.
You will find great success in creative endeavors.
The perfect solution is closer than you think.

Then, we took this simple promotion one step further. Each of our clients also received a custom card that said, "Refer Your Love" on the front. Inside we wrote a witty and gracious message that conveyed our appreciation for their business and our desire to work with more people like them. Enclosed was a custom designed reply card with a SASE. In keeping with the theme, it was stamped with Chinese New Year postage. To really highlight the hot pink of the packaging and envelopes, all pieces were placed in a plain white box and cushioned with white paper shred."

-Tracey Bolton, Bolton Design

Tracey and Nat are the branding experts I have trusted for the past five years - they have been the source of several marketing and design solutions for me, including www.sarahsloboda.com, and the identity for my photography brand. We'll be working together again in the very near future so stay tuned for what they do for me next!

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the cookies were delicious. Thanks, Tracey and Nat!

Broken Glass

This glass was a gift from a restaurant owner, not far from the marketplace in Rome, near where my friend Rachel used to live. The owner was charming and extra attentive, as we were the only guests in the tiny restaurant that evening, and he seemed amused to hear us carrying on in English. Rachel had explained to him, "My friend loves your glasses!" And the owner insisted that I take one home with me to America. Why did I love it so much? Well, to be honest, it was the name of the restaurant and the logo imprinted on it, Il Picolo Grande Chef, which literally translates to mean, "The Little Big Chef." I mean, how cute is that?!




The glass was laid to rest this week, after an untimely incident in the sink. It will be missed, and its memories never forgotten. Luckily, I still have the dessert plate with the little brown Scorpion imprinted on it, that Rachel scored for me from Il Scorpio.

Fall 2010 - New York Fashion Week

For the uninitiated, it may seem strange that Fashion Week, Fall 2010, occurred in February. Like many traditions, fashion has its own innumerable quirks. My friend Rachel works in fashion, for an agency in their hair and make-up department, and she has recounted many fantastic tales, such as the time she shoved boxes and boxes of eyelashes into a friend's stuffed suitcase as she left for Paris, the only conceivable way to get them overseas to her artist even sooner than FedEx could have, in order for them to arrive in advance of the fashion show for which they were required (needless to say, Rachel's hair and make-up artists think she is a miracle-worker).


I have been a photographer for years, and have worked on lots of film, television, and commercial sets. I thought I knew a thing or two about make-up, beauty, and even styling. But when I first arrived backstage at fashion week, I realized that Rachel's stories were the tip of an abominable, art-centric, impeccable iceberg. There were people everywhere - crammed into every inch of available space. Tables stretched along all four walls of every room, covered in carefully laid-out hair and make-up application tools and products. Cameras of every size and shape clicked away, while their operators bumped into each other, almost politely. In fact, the protocol I noticed immediately, was an acceptance of the chaos, and an incredible sense of respecting the need to share the space - what very little of it there was. The other thing I noticed immediately was the amazing professionalism, the way everyone knew how to do their job and try to stay out of other people's way - how everyone had a specific detail to which to attend, whether it be clothes, modeling, hair, or make-up, and they focused intensely on doing their job well, despite the chaotic environment.


Sephora hired me to cover 27 fashion shows, behind-the-scenes, over the course of 8 days. It became kind of like a dance, jetting from place to place around town, reporting to the beauty writer Sephora had assigned to the show, and figuring out which model had a nearly-complete look ready to be photographed for the blog. The goal was to create images that would show off the make-up in a way to do it justice, as it's Sephora's Beauty and the Blog's job to show their customers how the make-up really looks on someone, and how to use it. Mostly that involved using existing light to create a beauty look -- often having the model sit right in front of the same light used to apply her make-up -- so I found it an extra special treat when the show was taking place in a studio with great window light.


I had many, many little adventures during the week - a lot of which were commemorated for your viewing pleasure on my facebook page. I felt honored to document the hard work of so many talented artists whose skills delineated the quality of the brand they're representing. The week yielded lots of successful shots, as showcased by the photos linked here to their original posts on the Sephora blog. One personal, hilarious moment was showing up to a show on Ash Wednesday with ashes on my forehead; a story Sephora liked so much, they let me blog about it for them! I'm officially a fashion week convert - bitten by the fashion bug and loving it.


(Photo of me by Nicole Grippo.)

Baby Bee - Portraits of a 4-Week-Old

I had the pleasure of creating Charlie's very first portraits, when he was just a day shy of one month old. He was so patient and sweet that I got a full hour with him, without tears! Towards the end of the shoot, his mom put him in a bee costume, which we swooned over, but he didn't like so much. I just had to share these sweet portraits of little Charlie...

Nabbed and Instantly Broadcast

When I started this blog in October of 2007, I saw it as a two-year endeavor, emulating a two-year Master's Degree in fine art. The concept was to keep my creativity alive -- having made the photography that was once only a hobby into a full-time job, I wanted to make sure I had a forum for non-professional creative endeavors (i.e., explored for their own sake) and a place to document thoughtful meanderings. Over time, the University of Sarah has evolved in many ways - using the term "fine art" loosely at times, other times blending over into literature, and sometimes simply exploring new thoughts and sharing ideas I came across.

In a sense, I have graduated. As much as this blog remains a forum for me to explore, it has grown into a place for me to communicate with my clients about what goes on behind the work itself. My business has grown and changed, as well as my artwork, along with the world at large, which has embraced social media and the need for instantaneous and incessant electronic connection with others.

As a lover and deliverer of stories, this evolution is perfect for me. My favorite part of making art is the immersion in a moment - "nabbing" something, I call it. Being present enough to capture the emotional essence of a moment, whether in hitting the shutter at just the right second or articulating exactly the right turn of phrase, is the most grounding and gratifying experience I know. Now, my nabbings can be instantly broadcast, using the mobile upload function on my iPhone and sending images and thoughts directly to my facebook page.

Someone once asked me what my relationship was with technology. I replied, "I came of age with it." My mother taught me DOS commands so I could use the word processor when I was 5. I surfed the Cleveland Freenet (pre-internet) and had an email account at age 11, using a dial-up modem. Unlike the generation before, I got a taste of these things while I was still a child. Unlike the generation after, I can vividly remember life without them. I have a unique appreciation from this viewpoint -- seeing clearly the changes technology makes in our lives, and being accustomed to the rapidness with which it does so.

While I will continue to utilize this blog for substantial stories, social media has become for me a platform for the smaller, everyday stories that affect my work and my creative process. It seems my inner desire to capture and share has reached a beautiful coalescence with the technology of the outer world, which allows me to create, manage, and address an audience in the exact moment I feel inspired to do so. Some people see me obsessively playing with my iPhone and mistake me for a workaholic or a socialite or addicted to facebook, but the truth is that I am playing out a childhood fantasy of immediate broadcast of my creative captures.

Do indulge me.

Follow or become a fan.

Happy New Year, 2010

My clients impressed me with their taste and creativity this past holiday season - having each designed a unique expression of themselves to share with family and friends. Their self-conceptualized holiday cards included everything from pre-designed matte finish flat cards, to custom letterpress with hand-mounted prints, to custom graphics-enhanced glossy prints, to photo-quality folded cards. Below are some of my favorite holiday cards sent by my clients this past year, featuring portraits I shot in November and December.

Winter Solstice

Yesterday morning, I flew into Cleveland Hopkins Airport from New York, to spend Christmas at home with my parents. It was an eventful morning - getting out of New York the Monday after a blizzard, during which many weekend flights were cancelled proved difficult, although not impossible. I'd never seen LaGuardia Airport so busy, let alone at 5 in the morning! Upon landing, I was interviewed for a story on travel delays by Cleveland's local Channel 5 News.


Cleveland's proximity to Lake Erie gives it an advantage for yielding white Christmases due to what is known as "lake effect snow," and it's been snowing gently ever since I arrived. This evening, officially the longest night of the year, I took a walk on the grounds in front of my parents' house to take in the brisk air, and reflect on this season of hibernation. The short hours of sunlight, the life of plants dried into brown, crisp carcasses, the stillness of animals hidden or sleeping or having flown south, all laying groundwork for looking deeply inward - for letting go of last year's harvest, and preparing to start fresh next year. Decay brings both sadness and, then, new life. We cannot reach the new life without the period of decay. Winter asks us to go inward, to slow down, to unravel. And, unravel, many of us do this time of year - with old family scars and triumphs revisited, with familiar patterns reignited through reminders of our youth, and with appreciation for what has unfolded in our lives, and how far we've come.


Many Christmases I've looked out these giant windows at my parents' country home, and many times I've pondered my past and my future from the presence of a winter trip here. This year, something is new for me. I have no regrets. I am just observing. I am looking at where I came from, where I went, and where I might go from here, and this year, none of it feels so dire, yet all of it feels worthy of acknowledgment. Perhaps my youthful days of pushing and fighting as if I must stake a claim on my desires and demand their fulfillment are decaying under the snow, as nutrients for a blossoming attitude of acceptance and full presence in who I am, with trust in the way things always unfold. Perhaps the right amount of self-belief and effort are developing in me as I grow older, and like the seasons, something is turning in me, as my own pure nature makes appropriately tantamount my ego. Fighting and pushing are devices of excess, and the correct effort requires far less. In this dark, quiet time, I am glimpsing what I knew when I was five years old, when I fought for nothing, but just consistently did my best; and took a stand not through taking one, really, but simply by abiding in what is right.


There are certain things we come back to every year, like the darkness of winter, and there are things that have longer seasons. If we can let ourselves sink down, past the cerebral hustle and bustle, down past the sensitive heart that takes cover behind shields of laughter and defense, deeper, to a place where the movement is nearly imperceptible, like cells dividing in preparation of a new organism, we can find the microscopic turning of our own inner seasons. It manifests signposts as drastic as the heat of summer or the cold burn of snow. Yet, deep within, it is as mild and constant as our own breath, and the earth in its revolve around the sun.