Sarah Schanze

Art & Design

Stride logo

Industry: Ed-tech
Years: 2018-2023
Position: Senior Visual Designer

  • Became a go-to designer for grades K-5 English Language Arts courses.
  • Lead designer for K-5 One Voice; finalized templates and created documentation in addition to making dozens of components.
  • Accessibility at the forefront while we turned toward a mobile-first mindset.
  • Designed branded characters and created fun illustrations to delight kids throughout courses.

One Voice

  • One Voice is Stride’s free online course focused on racial equity and social justice.
  • I was pulled in early to solidify templates and create style guide documentation.
  • Built most of the components for grades K-5, and some for 6-12.
Progress through One Voice 3-5 Branching Component describing three different families.
One Voice Branching component on the Stride website and in mobile view.
Style Guide for 3-5 Branching Page 1
Style Guide for 3-5 Branching Page 2
Two screens from a branching component for One Voice grades 6-12 about slavery.
Grades K-2 Card Component with one card activated to play audio.
Grades K-2 binary question component with incorrect answer selected.

K-5 English Language Arts

  • Tasked with the asset creation of several ELA courses with a focus on grades K-5.
  • Course focuses varied from Phonics to general ELA.
  • Creation of components for kids who couldn’t yet read meant the use of a lot more audio.
ELA binary choice component with correct choice selected.
ELA K-2 Binary Image Choice with word above choices.
ELA Grades 3-5 showing poem "Penguins Are Cool" with image of penguins next to it.
ELA vocabulary definition of word "bleary" with image of sleepy dog.

K-5 Spanish

  • Part of the team that took old Spanish courses made years ago and updated them to match current design standards and styles.
  • Lots of image reuses from old courses but new design elements like background colors and patterns were created.
Spanish asset with three word choices and an image of a fishbowl with six fish in it.
Spanish card asset with four cards showing different numbers and the translation below.
Spanish asset choosing the correct ending of a word.
Screenshot of card review asset showing three images and the translation below.

K-5 Delight

  • Created pictures meant to excite and delight and sometimes help teach concepts.
  • Many were edited from an illustration library and use the K-5 characters created to keep students engaged.
  • Images all created in Adobe Illustrator.
Collage of illustrations of children.

K-5 Characters

  • Designed four of the kid characters that were created for use throughout K-5 courses: Raj, Sarah, Eloise, and Eric.
  • The shape language and body styles were not my creation, but I had fun adding my own flair to the characters, like Raj’s undercut or Eloise’s chubbiness and glasses.
Image of the character Raj at three different ages.
Image of the character Sarah at three different ages.
Image of the character Eloise at three different ages.
Image of the character Eric at three different ages.