Isabelle Carrou

I work closely with marketing and creative professionals to understand their goals and help shape content that’s engaging, on brand, and designed to connect with a younger audience. Vivian uses these deliverables across their social media platforms.

Each month I research current trends and apply new ideas and formats to my edited TikToks and Reels, while balancing a set of deliverables and keeping the quality, tone, and visual identity consistent.

This experience has strengthened both my design skills and my ability to communicate ideas effectively in a fast-paced, real-world setting.

I design graphics and unique illustrations for different UC Santa Cruz social media platforms, including the Division of Student Affairs and Success and the Student Health Center. I work with a professional team to create and edit instructional content that supports and informs UC Santa Cruz students about campus resources, deadlines, and helpful tips.

I conduct research and analysis while staying organized and detail-oriented throughout each project. Using a personalized project tracker, I manage priorities, track progress, and ensure every project is completed with care and thoroughness.

Our goal as Cowell College Senate was not only to provide funding to clubs on campus, but to increase student engagement and connect the campus community with what Cowell and UC Santa Cruz have to offer.

I managed the Senate’s Instagram and TikTok, designing and publishing graphics and posters to promote events and share resources with students. Consistent, creative content planning grew engagement and event attendance, and gave the Senate a recognizable visual style.

Some of the events I promoted were a Friendsgiving Dinner, a Valentine’s Bouquet Giveaway, and an End of the Year Celebration. My goal for each poster was to be clear, welcoming, and visually on-theme for the event.

Our goal as designers was not just to make things look good, but to create work that elevated each artist’s brand. We did this by drafting and exploring different styles to capture the unique vibe and message of each artist.

Some of the design projects included logos, wallpapers, presentations, and tour posters. My design of the Marisa Sardo Tour poster was featured on both Dividend’s and the artist’s Instagram accounts.

Through this internship, I learned to adapt creatively and design with intention.

The challenge was to create a complete product and brand identity within a two-week timeframe, from researching fragrance ingredients and scent profiles to developing the brand’s story and visual direction.

My role focused on the creative and design side. Using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Procreate, I designed the logo, developed promotional visuals, and created the presentation materials used in our final pitch. I also contributed to research and concept development, helping shape the overall vision of the brand and its messaging.

The final submission was a three-slide pitch deck and an edited promotional video presented to L’Oréal. The project strengthened my skills in branding, visual storytelling, graphic design, video editing, and collaborative problem-solving under tight deadlines.

I designed a website to showcase three original pieces: a tree, a seal, and a California poppy. Each illustration was built in Photoshop by individually placing and layering pieces of trash to form symbolic figures that represent the natural environment, local wildlife, and the specific environmental challenges facing the Bay.

Every detail in the three graphics is made solely out of trash. With 57 million tons of plastic pollution accumulating every year, the message is simple: let us not be rooted from waste.

This project let me explore the impact of waste through research, and showed me how visuals with a purpose can tell a deeper story.

The goal of this project was to develop a complete, animated character while refining my skills in character modeling and production workflow.

I started with concept sketches before modeling the body, clothing, head, and hair. Once the base of the character was established, I UV-unwrapped and textured the model in Substance Painter, experimenting with materials and surface detail to enhance realism and style.

The final stage was rigging the character with a full skeletal system so it could move and be animated. The project challenged me to manage a long-term workflow and solve technical issues across every stage of character creation.

The first is a stop motion piece made with InShot, using traced, found images with a vintage aesthetic. The challenge, and the fun, was remixing those visuals into something totally new: a slightly offbeat but playful narrative with a bit of humor woven in.

The second and third are hand-drawn animations, created frame by frame and edited in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. Each one tells a short story through expressive movement, pacing, and sound, and pushed me to think more deeply about timing and emotional rhythm in visual storytelling.

These projects sharpened my skills in animation, editing, and narrative structure. More than that, they reminded me how much I enjoy bringing ideas to life.

We co-wrote the characters and dialogue, designed different storylines and outcomes based on player decisions, and brought the experience to life through custom visuals, embedded music, and code, using CSS and JavaScript inside Twine.

What made this project meaningful was how collaborative and hands-on it was. We ran into Twine’s scripting limitations and worked through them together by brainstorming, problem solving, and debugging as a team.

In the end, we delivered a polished, engaging experience that reflects both of our voices and centers stories that are often underrepresented in games.