Sara Wegman Sara Wegman
Sara

Hey there, nice to meet you!

I’m Sara, a writer and product manager currently pursuing a Master's at Princeton Theological Seminary.

@work I most recently served as the Head of Product at Binkies 3D, where I spent a total of 3.5 years. Prior to that, I worked as a product manager, product owner, and front-end developer. I continue to use my technical and design skills for freelance projects and my own side projects.

@home I live in Princeton, New Jersey with my husband. On a sunny day, you can find me walking in the woods or enjoying the view from my balcony with a cup of black coffee and a good book.

@heart I love good people and great stories. My mission statement is to 'tell the truth with beauty.'

Interested in seeing my work? Check out my portfolio or my LinkedIn, or jump to my education or experience.

Select Portfolio Projects

Below is a selection of a few recent portfolio projects.

Advent Illustrated: Waiting 'Round the Wreath

I independently wrote, designed, and published a series of Bible journaling devotionals from 2015-2018, two of which were briefly the best-selling Bible study on Amazon. In 2022 I gave my favorite of these studies a print redesign to give it new life. The redesigned version includes the full original study with expanded devotionals and educational resources, as well as weekly videos and bonus content such as seasonal crafts and recipes.

Interwoven

I was hired to create the new brand identity and build the custom WordPress installation for a new PC (USA) church being started in Altadena, California. Service, cross-cultural fellowship, and integration with the local community are at the heart of this church’s identity, and the branding I created tried to encompass this through the use of color, pattern, and the logo.

Ally Kirk Lee

Ally contacted me to design her personal brand and build a custom WordPress installation when she started her job search. Over the course of several months, I met regularly with her to get a better understanding of her unique identity as a minister. Ultimately, themes of compassionate listening, creative ministry, and a connection to nature came to the forefront. I incorporated these into Ally’s branding, creating a minimalist site design that allowed her logo and nature photography to take center-stage. The logo has a hand-hewn feeling with shapes inspired by patterns in nature.

Call of Many Colors

Ministry Incubators commissioned me to design and develop an online version of their callings quiz for use during seminars. The quiz matches you to a unique combination of three ‘call types.' Playing on the idea of Joseph's coat of many colors, I chose to represent each call type with a unique color splotch. As a user takes the quiz, the color splotch guiding them changes shape and hue, as though discerning the call. A user's results are represented by a uniue "calling palette," a three-way Venn diagram that brings to mind the trinity knot or a stained glass window.

Little Lantern Shop

In 2021 I began selling 3D prints inspired by my undergraduate college's famous landmarks. My favorite aspect of this project was designing the brand identity and packaging for the shop, which included custom stickers, postcards, and a rubber stamp. The full scale of the project included product design and photography, branding and logo design, and building a website for users to track their pre-orders.

Rose

Experience

Head of Product and Innovation, Binkies 3D

Full-time, Jan 2021 - June 2023 (3.5 years)

  • Lead the five-person Product Team and the product development process.
  • Served as the first product manager for Studio 3D, which enables designers to create product-centered content using a catalog of 4000+ 3D models. I guided Studio’s development from initial idea to market, served as its first product owner and product manager, and continued to serve as the owner of the product story as our team grew, shaping the language and positioning we used for Studio.
  • Served on the company's Management Team, leading the quarterly OKR-drafting and company roadmapping process.
  • Spearheaded the design of new products, including Studio 3D and Discover 3D. Served as point-person and product owner for the Development Team as the products are being built.
  • Developed our company’s product development framework and methodologies.
  • Conducted customer interviews and market research to align our innovation with customer needs.
  • Developed the sales collateral and product story to share with the Customer Champions team so they could sell the product.
  • Shape the positioning and product story in any external language about the product at the time of launch, including the landing page, social media posts, and newsletter texts.
  • In my capacity on the Managment Team, led the company’s operations and employee well-being initiatives.

Editor, A List Apart

Part time (volunteer basis), Jan 2019 - Jun 2022 (3.5 years)

  • Work with writers to edit their articles for publication at A List Apart, a large online magazine that publishes articles about web design and development.
  • Help authors organize their thoughts, streamline arguments, improve their writing, and form a stronger thesis for their articles.
  • Validate the appropriateness of submissions for publications based on the quality of writing, originality of the premise, strength of argument, and suitability for our audience.

Developer, Binkies 3D

Full-time, Jan 2020 - Jan 2021 (1 year 1 mos.)

  • Create user interface mockups and concept proposals for new ideas in our Product Development process. Guide the concept through multiple stages of feedback and refinement. Communicate with the rest of the development team about translating the design into an internal minimum viable product, and work on the building of that implementation.
  • Designed and built the first version of Bakery, an internal web application for our content team to create 3D models. The application loads models from the company’s platform and allows users to create and adjust materials, material properties, and textures for our 3D product models.
  • Build integrations of our 3D content for clients, adjusting the layout and design of the 3D interface to reflect client wishes and brand guidelines.
  • Create product mockups for proposals for external clients.

Front-end software engineer, Nalta

Fulltime, Jan 2019 - Dec 2020 (1 year)

  • Fully redesigned and rebranded Nalta’s digital presence after its merger with Webbeat. Designed the new logo, business cards, email signatures, and social media imagery, and built the new site. The redesign resulted in a 200% traffic increase to our website from August to September and new clients who found us through organic search.
  • Built a custom in-house email signature generator that allows an admin to update seasonal banners and disclaimers. This saved the company a week’s worth of effort in manually creating signatures for each employee.
  • Redesigned and implemented a new user interface for digitalAngel, a web app that couples with smart mattresses and wheelchairs to keep nurses up-to-date on their patients’ vital signs and positioning.
  • Implemented new features for digitalAngel that include better alarm monitoring, smoother user and patient creation, and the ability to modify user settings such as language.
  • Translated design teams’ wireframes and mockups into responsive, interactive views and pages for various clients, including a major food company.

Blogger, Sara Laughed

Part-time, Feb 2012 - Nov 2018 (6 years 10 mos.)

  • Built the blog Sara Laughed (saralaughed.com) to a readership of 1.6 million readers per year and a social following of 35,000. Wrote weekly posts covering a range of topics from crafts to college advice, some of which reached up to 600,000 hits and 100,000 shares. Some posts were syndicated with HerCampus. Partnered with brands including Amazon, Starbucks, and Tidal.
  • Ran College Compass (collegecompass.co), the college-focused offshoot of the Sara Laughed blog, which featured college help articles, columns, and downloadable workbooks to help students perform better academically. From 2016 to 2017, the site received 25,000 readers per month. While the site is still online, I no longer update its contents.
  • Ran Seasons Illustrated, a creative devotional community of 6,000 members, from 2015 to 2017. Self-published 7 Seasons Illustrated studies, including two Amazon best-sellers.

Design fellow, The Tempest

Part-time, Dec 2017 - May 2018 (6 mos.)

  • Created the design elements for the website’s YouTube channel redesign.
  • Made headers and illustrations for articles to be published on the Tempest.

Design intern, Maya Elious

Part-time, Jun 2017 - Nov 2017 (6 mos.)

  • Created all social media and YouTube graphics related to Maya Elious’ mentorship program for female entrepreneurs.
  • Managed community interaction, discussion, and moderation in the private online community for Maya Elious’ mentorship program.

Education

Princeton Theological Seminary

Current MDiv candidate. Expected graduation 2026

Wellesley College

Bachelor of Arts in Religion (magna cum laude), 2016

Mansfield College, Oxford University

Theology and Religion (Visiting Student Programme), 2014-2015

Certificates

Web Accessibility Certification

Deque University, 2020

Front-End Development

Treehouse, 2018

Web Development

Treehouse, 2018

JavaScript

Treehouse, 2018

Butterfly

About the design for this page

The flowers on this page are taken from 17th century floral still lifes by two Dutch female artists: Maria van Oosterwijck and Rachel Ruysch.

When I began redesigning my portfolio, I knew I wanted a 'dark mode' design early on. In drawing inspiration, I started thinking about Dutch Golden Age painting, which is characterized by muted, moody colors. Working in the Netherlands in quite a different medium — one in which constant advances often render even last year's work dated — I liked the idea of utilizing this traditional work in a new way.

When doing research, I discovered that floral paintings were often the specialty of the few female painters of the era. I knew that in evoking the feeling of this genre of art, I wanted to celebrate these female artists and their beautiful work.

Many thanks to the Rijksmuseum and their Rijks Studio for access to high-resolution images of these paintings. To learn more about van Oosterwijck and Ruysch, head to the Rijksmuseum's website.