A man in a black suit and black shirt posing against a plain white background.

Sachin Elam

Graphic Design

Bold I Reliable I Vibrant

I design clean, confident visuals for creative brands.

Full Portfolio

A digital billboard at a bus stop displaying an advertisement for HIFF, Vancouver, BC, with the dates December 12-19, 2025, and logos of sponsors and partners at the bottom. The surrounding area includes trees, buildings, and people with bicycles.

Film Festival

Horror | Poster | Graphic

Process: The project began with sketching to develop initial ideas. I gathered visual inspiration primarily from Pinterest, focusing on horror related imagery such as mummies and demos to establish an unsettling atmosphere. During this stage, I experimented with different layout approaches for the text and explored additional graphics including skulls, hands, and devil imagery. I also tested variations in typography and briefly explored a minimalist approach that relied on a typographic element for the poster design.

InDesign
Illustrator

Collage of horror and thriller movie posters with red, black, and white color schemes, including illustrations of zombies, a skeleton, and abstract horror-themed imagery.

Sketch of different promotional posters and flyers for an event or organization called 'HIFF,' featuring illustrations of a person with a torch, a horned creature, and a person with sunglasses. The posters include labels for 'web,' 'venue,' 'date,' and 'sponsors.'

This was a combined project spanning two classes taught by the same instructor. In one course, I designed a poster for a horror film festival using InDesign, the horror international film festival (HIFF) was inspired by the structure and tone of the Vancouver Film Festival. In the web design course which was the other class, I expanded the project by designing a website for the event in Figma, ensuring visual and consistency across both print and digital formats.

Mood board
Sketches
Iterations

Magazine

Book | Typographic | Helvetica

A man in a green blazer and black shirt standing in front of a background with large yellow text that reads "HERO."

A magazine spread featuring holiday content and a Spider-Man themed photo on the right. The left page includes images of a young boy with a Christmas tree and decorations, a person with a flower arrangement, and a spider crawling on web lines. The text discusses topics like Christmas, themed crafts, and neighborhood descriptions.

A digital mood board featuring images of actors, fashion styles, typography samples, and color swatches on a red background.

The project began with the development of a mood board, where I defined the subject, visual direction, and overall tone of the magazine. I selected the actor as the central focus and gathered layout references to guide the magazine’s style and structure. Yellow was chosen as the primary color to convey a polished and professional feel, while the typographic system paired Helvetica for bold, large scale headlines with Minion Pro font for body text, creating a clear contrast between hierarchy levels.

Process: The project began with the development of a mood board, where I defined the subject, visual direction, and overall tone of the magazine. I selected the actor as the central focus and gathered layout references to guide the magazine’s style and structure. Yellow was chosen as the primary color to convey a polished and professional feel, while the typographic system paired Helvetica for bold, large scale headlines with Minion Pro font for body text, creating a clear contrast between hierarchy levels.

InDesign
Mood board

A drawing of a Cherry Garden with pink cherry blossoms, purple and white flowers, and a seating area with three people near a signage about Cherry Garden Parklet design.

Parklet

Sketchup | 3D Model | Views

Signboard titled 'Cherry Garden' explaining a design project by Sachin Elam for a Langara College course, including a small blueprint of a garden layout, mounted on a textured wall next to green plants.

A conceptual illustration of a small park feature with cherry blossom trees, benches, and informational signage, located near 49th Avenue in Langara.

A concrete wall with the pink neon sign reading 'Cherry Garden' in cursive script, surrounded by green plants and purple-white flowers at the base.

This project represents the second phase of a first semester assignment that I previously worked on, in which I designed a parklet of my choosing. For the initial phase, I created a cherry blossom themed parklet. In this second phase, the focus shifted to placing the parklet within a SkyTrain station and visualizing how it would function and appear if installed in a real-world environment using a 3D software called sketchup.

Process: I began with positioning the parklet within the SkyTrain station, followed by the placement of plants behind the structure to enhance the feeling of realism. I then designed window graphics featuring a repeating cherry blossom pattern, over which I applied a poster describing the project and acknowledging the sponsors, including the college and the Design Formation program. Additionally, I created a secondary, smaller poster that explained the purpose of the installation and featured a three dimensional version of the parklet.

Sketchup
InDesign

Close-up of a colorful handmade paper craft featuring a purple and white owl with googly eyes, set against a black and yellow background.

Candy Box

Experiential Design | Paper Cutting | Exhibition

Paper craft of a white and green butterfly with black edges, attached on a black and green background, on a green cutting mat.

A 3D paper craft of a purple squid with big eyes and long tentacles inside a black frame with a yellow border, set against a dark background with blue accents.

Several layers of purple and metallic paper cutouts arranged on a grid cutting mat. A yellow utility knife and a precision craft knife are visible on the right side of the mat.

A close-up of a decorative piece with a yellow border, black background, and cutouts of blue circles and wavy patterns.

Colorful paper cutouts of a purple octopus with big white eyes and a green star on its head, placed inside a yellow photo frame.

Colorful paper octopus craft with large googly eyes, placed inside a black box frame on a workspace with measurement tools on the side.

This was my first crafting project, in which we randomly selected a mystery bag containing an unbranded snack and were tasked with designing a candy box that visually communicated the flavor of that snack. I received sour squid chips, which informed the overall concept for my mood, and visual language of my final candy box.

Process: During the ideation process, I explored different ways to translate the snack’s sensory experience into a candy box concept. Many examples from previous students' work featured short, three letter sound effects, which influenced my decision to follow a similar approach. I ultimately chose “YCK” to reflect my negative reaction to the snack. The concept centers on a squid confined within the box in an awkward, compressed position, reinforcing the uncomfortable and unappealing feeling associated with the product.Indesign

Paper Cutting
Spray Paint
Gluing

A kitchen setting with a gray tiled wall. On the counter, there is a beige mug holding wooden utensils, a tray of cookies, and a wall poster titled "The Final Crumb" featuring a person with a scream mask. The poster includes the author Lilith Corvin and the slogan "Sweet. Sinister. Satisfying," with a red stamp indicating "Best Seller." A folded striped cloth is placed nearby.

Open magazine featuring Halloween-themed recipes, including a black-and-white photo of people in costumes with masks, and illustrations of chains and knives.

Open cookbook displaying recipes for Chucky's chopped chocolate chip cookies and Michael Myers' red velvet slasher cake, with images of cookies and cake, and black and white photos of characters.

Cover of a book titled "The Final Crumb" with dark images of horror movie characters, including Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, and a person in a ghost face mask behind a cake.

Cookbook

Typography | Halloween | Book

This was a group project where we had to decide on a theme to work on for the cookbook but later I modified for other projects, so we chose a Halloween theme, since we worked on it around that time period. We also decided to try a pink Halloween which was used for the background and we decided to do slasher characters baking snacks. In this project we worked together to make sketches for the different layouts and moodboard for the style. In the end we came up with AI generated images and food to have some consistency and match the theme of halloween.

Mood board
sketches
iterations