designer & outdoor-enthusiast.

Selected Works

Archive

Additional works and explorations.

Absurd Snacks

2025

Marketing Campaign

As part of a 24-hour creative sprint, I collaborated with a team of three to develop a comprehensive campaign for Absurd Snacks, an allergy-friendly snack brand. We were challenged to respond to a client brief with strategic creative solutions, which we presented directly to the brand.

My responsibilities included producing high-quality mockups of redesigned merchandise and packaging to visually support and strengthen our concept of adventure can be anywhere!

The Commonwealth Times

2026

Print + Digital

Editorial and digital design for independent student newsroom, including typesetting, photo editing, and preparing formatted, color-correct files for print production.

Clever Tiny Homes

2025

Marketing Campaign

A three-part print campaign for Clever Tiny Homes. From mountains to deserts, city streets to lush forests, no matter where the road takes you, home is where you park it.

By splicing images of the same tiny home in diverse locations, I aim to emphasize freedom and flexibility in being mobile.

An Ode to Maintenance

2025

Print + Installation

This project began during finals week, with a fish tank I couldn’t keep alive and a feeling of losing control. What I could maintain was my dad’s old bike: cleaning it, fixing it, keeping it going. That small routine became grounding.

Printed onto transparent bike spoke cards is Lucas Winzenburg’s essay, Debt of Disrepair: An Ode to Maintenance. The project turns maintenance into a feedback loop: neglect makes the message unreadable, while care brings clarity. The design only works if you care for it. Maintenance doesn’t just preserve the message. It is the message. Activated through a ride and shared repairs with the Bike Club @VCU, maintenance becomes attention, commitment, and practice.

Sammy Scramble

2025

Print + Game

Exploring how meaning shifts when information is translated through systems. This ‘translation machine’ chops sandwich recipes apart into a simple game.

Food for Thought

2024

Print

Created and authored a perfect-bound recipe book featuring original recipes and personal insights, focusing on the experience and setting where the food is enjoyed rather than just the recipes themselves.

The design emphasizes storytelling, atmosphere, and trial-and-error, inviting readers to savor both the culinary and emotional connections to each dish.

Angular

2024

Print + Poster

A series of three A2-sized posters featuring original photographs taken throughout Italy. The collection highlights the striking angularity of Italian architecture, emphasizing its geometric elegance, structural beauty, framing, and the creative use of angles in design.

The Eater's Digest

2024

Print

Authored a 500-page book exploring themes of consumption and digestion through materials, writings, imagery, and condiments, all creatively packaged within the format of a sandwich.

This work pairs with the recipe book Food for Thought, offering a conceptual dive into food, experience, and the symbolic layers of eating.

Food for Thought

2024

Print

Created and authored a perfect-bound recipe book featuring original recipes and personal insights, focusing on the experience and setting where the food is enjoyed rather than just the recipes themselves.

The design emphasizes storytelling, atmosphere, and trial-and-error, inviting readers to savor both the culinary and emotional connections to each dish.

BONES!

2024

Print / Experimental

Inspired by fish, the dragons from 'The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom', and the red line in the 'Indiana Jones' series, BONES is a 48x8” accordion book featuring original photographs of rock arrangements in the Mojave Desert.

The rocks are composed to resemble the skeletal remains of a fish, with ribs and body evoking a sense of decay and natural artistry, presented through a seamless line of continuation.

Hello, my name is Raya Freeborn

/ˈræj.ə/

Great design communicates. Greater design engages, empowers, and resonates.

Raya Freeborn is a multimedia artist from Southwest Virginia. She is a senior pursuing a B.F.A. in graphic design at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, with minors in computer science and media studies.

Her fascination with visual storytelling began early. At three, she taught herself to read while exploring and interacting in the world of Club Penguin. Experiencing firsthand how digital worlds can educate, spark curiosity, and inspire exploration has shaped her approach to design. Her work aims to spark conversations and evolve into experiences, blending branding, digital media, and interactive design.

Exhibitions
  • 2025 VCUarts Undergraduate Juried Exhibition – Risk ≠ Reward (2025)
  • Scholastic Art Award – Silver Key (2022)
  • Scholastic Art Award – Honorable Mention (2022)
  • Best in Show – Red. & Ad Astra (2022)
Speaker
  • Ours Talk Shop (2025)
  • The Fishbowl Artist Talk (2026)
Advertising
  • Ad Club at VCU – Best Packaging Design Winner (2025)
GitHub Link