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Sharna Sammy - Designer
South Africa
Experience in book covers, interior text layouts, hand lettering, conceptual design, logo development, and project management.
Overview
Book designer with 8 years experience working within an established international publishing house. I worked alongside editors, illustrators and printers to create a high standard of work and within budget. I consider every detail of the book process with good technical knowledge of book reproduction.
Currently I'm freelancing and have worked with self-published authors for young adult to non-fiction books.
I've also worked on school, trade, literature, and higher educational books. This includes interior page text design as well as cover design.
The cover rebranding of the South African Oxford Dictionary is a good example of how I developed a professional-looking cover brand across different subjects and languages within the entire dictionary series.
I have a passion for the way books should be designed and read.
Responsible, disciplined, helpful and always eager to learn and teach.
Services
Fiction
Non-Fiction
Certifications
- 3 Year National Diploma in Graphic Design at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT)
- Growing Agile Scrum Master certificate through Growing Agile
Awards
- Won an Innovation Award at Oxford University Press for introducing an agile workflow system in the design studio
Work experience
Managing Designer / Team Leader
Oxford University Press Southern Africa
Job Responsibility: Managing Designer and one of three Team Leaders.
Managed the workload coming into the design studio alongside designing my own jobs; scheduling work to meet deadlines; guide editors on briefing jobs to designers; design and creation of own book covers, interior page layouts as well as book cover series development; and working with editors, illustrators and printers to achieve the highest standard covers. An example of this was the redesign of the South African Oxford Dictionary cover range.
My mission at Oxford was always to learn as much as I can about book publishing - the business itself, and find different ways of working smarter for designers and editors within publishing.
Magazine Layout Designer
Getaway Magazine
Job Responsibility: Designer on page layout and marketing advertorials.
Worked alongside editor, designers and photojournalists to come up with magazine layouts which complimented and enhance their written and photographic experiences. Part of my job responsibility was to hand paint maps for each story we designed. Also had to help choose the photographic images with the editor - ones that would best suit the story.
Newspaper Layout Designer
Pam Golding Properties
Job Responsibility: Layout artist for property (sale of houses in prestige areas) newspaper
Aside from preparing the weekly newspaper layouts for the property section, I also worked on marketing materials like brochures, leaflets and helped out on huge campaigns for Pam Golding events.
Portfolio (2 selected works)
Creeps (Creeps Series Book 1)
Tim Schoch
"As a child, this was one of my utmost favorite books and ever since I have refused to get rid of it...It is a brilliant story about a new girl who arrives at a school, and to all the students and even the teachers she seems strange (for Harry Potter fans, think Luna Lovegood). She is in fact so strange that two boys believe she is an alien. Throughout the story the truth is revealed and many ... read more
"As a child, this was one of my utmost favorite books and ever since I have refused to get rid of it...It is a brilliant story about a new girl who arrives at a school, and to all the students and even the teachers she seems strange (for Harry Potter fans, think Luna Lovegood). She is in fact so strange that two boys believe she is an alien. Throughout the story the truth is revealed and many ... read more
Summer Camp Creeps
Tim Schoch
“SUMMER CAMP CREEPS IS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I ENJOYED AS A KID and I'd recommend it to anybody who enjoys the hilarity that can happen when boys are pitted against girls in a Summer Camp Battleroyal with food fights,canoeing,a volleyball war and did I fail to mention there is also Indian legends to explore? THIS BOOK IS SO MUCH FUN! GET IT! READ IT! ENJOY!” --Melissa on Amazon.com “THIS WAS M... read more
“SUMMER CAMP CREEPS IS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I ENJOYED AS A KID and I'd recommend it to anybody who enjoys the hilarity that can happen when boys are pitted against girls in a Summer Camp Battleroyal with food fights,canoeing,a volleyball war and did I fail to mention there is also Indian legends to explore? THIS BOOK IS SO MUCH FUN! GET IT! READ IT! ENJOY!” --Melissa on Amazon.com “THIS WAS M... read more
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