I've done a lot of work over 25 years. The projects that stuck with me, and the clients I keep coming back to, are the ones building something worth believing in.
Zandra X is a boutique creative studio. Small by design, selective by nature. After 25+ years shaping brands, visual systems, and creative direction across agency, campaign, and independent contexts, I've gotten pretty good at knowing what works and who I work best with.
That tends to be entrepreneurs, artists, and mission-driven organizations who care deeply about what they do and are done settling for branding that undersells them. People who want their visual presence to be as considered as the work behind it.
I bring a fine arts sensibility to strategic problems, which sounds fancy but really just means the work is both rigorous and alive. It holds up, holds together, and says something worth saying without looking like everyone else.
Recent clients include artists, coaches, sustainable goods brands, and water advocacy campaigns. The industry varies, the give-a-damn factor doesn't.
This portfolio is a selection, not the whole story. Two and a half decades of work doesn't fit neatly on one page, and honestly, some of the best projects came from briefs I'd never done before. If you've got something specific in mind, just ask.
→ Working with artists specifically? There's a page for that.
WHAT I DO
I lead with strategy because pretty without purpose only gets you so far. Every service here is designed to make sure your brand doesn't just look the part — it knows its part, plays it consistently, and leaves a lasting impression with the people who matter most to you.
BRAND STRATEGY
The thinking before the making. I work with clients to clarify who they are, who they're talking to, and what makes them worth paying attention to. This is where the real work happens, and where everything else gets a whole lot easier.
BRAND IDENTITY + VISUAL SYSTEMS
Logos are the beginning, not the end. I build cohesive visual identities that hold together across every touchpoint, from print to digital to the stuff you haven't thought of yet.
ART DIRECTION
Whether it's a photoshoot, a campaign, or a website, I make sure everything looks and feels like it belongs together. The details matter. I'm annoyingly good at noticing them.
CREATIVE DIRECTION
For organizations and teams that need a steady creative hand without a full-time hire. I bring vision, consistency, and an outside perspective to keep the work sharp and on track.
NEED MORE THAN STRATEGY AND DESIGN?
I work with a trusted network of collaborators, developers, photographers, copywriters, and production specialists, who I bring in when a project calls for it. You get a cohesive creative vision from start to finish, without managing a cast of strangers.
BRANDING + art direction
A selection of brand identity and art direction projects — each one built from strategy up, designed to hold together and stand out.
BETWEEN HEAVEN & EARTH
CHERYL TAVES + INSIGHT CREATIVE
KEITH BAKER DESIGN
HANNAH KLAUS HUNTER
JOANNA DEMARSICO
HEATHER HOPKINS
CREATIVE DIRECTION
Longer-term engagements where I've shaped overall vision, voice, and visual direction — keeping the work sharp, consistent, and moving forward.
STRONG COAST
CODE BLUE BC
SALT SPRING IN THE CITY
Seen enough?
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Full rebrand including brand strategy, visual identity, colour palette, product photography art direction, website design and build.
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Rebrand and campaign including brand strategy, narrative mobilization campaigns, visual identity, digital assets, art direction and creative direction. Website built in collaboration with a development team.
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Brand strategy, narrative mobilization campaigns, visual identity, digital assets, art direction, creative direction, website design and build.
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Dual branding project for artist Cheryl Taves and her creativity coaching practice. Scope included brand strategy, visual identity, book design, online community graphics, learning module layout, sales funnel development, print collateral, website design and build.
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Full rebrand for an award-winning residential designer including logo, visual identity, colour palette, print collateral, and website design and build.
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Website redesign, visual refresh, and strategic consulting.
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Rebrand for an established artist including visual identity, print collateral, website design and build, and strategic consulting.
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Branding project including visual identity, print collateral, website design and build.
SEE THE WORK LIVE
The best way to understand how a brand holds together is to see it in the world. Here's where the work lives.
WHAT’S THIS DOING HERE?
Good question. Hoey Xōchitl is a personal project, a long-running visual collaboration with artist Timothy Wilson Hoey. Contrasting styles, productive tension, and one shared principle: nothing is too precious to paint over.
But here's why it's on this page. The instinct behind it is pop art's accessibility put to work in service of ideas that actually need to land somewhere. Sticker campaigns, guerrilla distribution, protest merch designed to flood streets and spaces with imagery that challenges power. Work made to move, not to sit in a frame.
That spirit has a professional application. The most effective campaign creative of the last decade hasn't come from agencies with big budgets and brand guidelines. It's come from people willing to be scrappy, urgent, and impossible to ignore. Led by Donkeys changed what political campaigning looks like with wheat paste and a van. That's the energy.
If you're an organisation with something real to say, a cause that needs to move people rather than just inform them, this is the part of my practice that knows how to do that. The collaborative work is the proof.
(yes, this is where we become sellouts.)
is this a fit?
If something here resonates, I'd love to hear what you're working on.
creative studio
(lək̓ʷəŋən traditional territory)
Victoria BC, Canada