Playground — Laila Shariff
Laila Shariff
Work Playground About
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Playground

The work that doesn't fit in a case study: brand campaigns, marketing strategy, a children's book, research, film photographs, and things I make with my hands.

Brand & Marketing Strategy Research Photography Craft
Built with code + AI

Ten small experiments

Interface effects I wanted to understand, so I built them. Each started as a small curiosity and was developed with AI as a creative coding partner. Every one is live code rather than a recording: the grain, characters, swatches, and interactions are computed while you look at them.

Some run on their own. Others wake when you touch them.
Halftone ditherA reflecting pool in Marrakech · move up and down to change the pitch
ASCII on hoverBrooklyn Flea · characters resolve under the cursor
A hillside in Dubrovnik seen through a windshield
Progressive blurFour masked layers, stacking upward
Elastic typeEB Garamond, struck like a string
Cursor galleryA travel log, dropped along the trail
Glass pillBackdrop blur, with dock magnification
Stitch generatorCrochet rows, turning at each end
A photograph the palette is measured from
Palette extractorClick for another photograph

The best interfaces disappear. What stays is the thing you came to do.

Marker highlightDrawing itself as it enters view
Product designer creating clear, human-centered experiences. Product designer creating clear, human-centered experiences.
GaramondSatoshi
Type pairingDrag to cross the two faces
Seven projects Playground Hover a frame to see where it comes from. Click to open the project.
Scroll to turn
01 · Brand Design

Made to Melt

Campaign Concept Art Direction Packaging Experiential

Beyond the campaign imagery, I developed the products and mockups for both brands and designed The Melt Bar — a live pop-up with a gloss try-on station and scannable QR cups that unlock a shade matched to your flavour.

Made to Melt beauty portrait — glossed lip and mint shimmer Made to melt — gloss dripping onto a strawberry scoop, orange field
Made to melt — the same scoop on a soft mint field Glossier Cloud Puff packaging render
02 · Marketing Strategy

Air Force 1, in a mature market

For my Marketing Management class I analysed Nike's brand marketing for the Air Force 1 — how a performance basketball shoe became a cultural icon — and built a strategy for defending that position against hype fatigue and shifting Gen Z values.

Marketing Strategy Brand Evolution Cultural Analysis
The Challenge — Air Force 1 in a mature market Strategic Recommendations — five moves to defend and extend AF1
03 · Writing

The Map Inside of Me

Storytelling Accessibility
The Map Inside of Me — front cover

While designing SayPlay through my work with United Cerebral Palsy, I kept thinking about how design and storytelling could make complex ideas around cerebral palsy more approachable for children. For my Creativity in Business class, I explored that idea through a completely different medium: a children’s book. The Map Inside of Me uses storytelling and illustration to help explain the relationship between the brain and movement in a way that feels imaginative, gentle, and accessible.

Read the book ↗

Opens the first five pages in a new tab.

04 · Graphic Design

Posters, layouts, type

Part of my minor in Visual Design, alongside Design and Color, Graphic Design, New Media Arts, and Introduction to AR and VR.

Nike AIR Collection poster with cut-paper collage and Just Do It lockup Photo collage — astronaut, skyline, Saturn and a grapefruit planet Hand-drawn digital mandala in neon pastels on black
Photo collage — figure with mountains, florals and eyes for a head Nike poster — sneakers on a wire, grain and repeated Just Do It
Zebra study — graphite drawing beside its scratchboard counterpart Ink linework study of a canyon at the drawing table, beside its reference photograph
05 · Research

Communication & Speech Emergence Lab

Qualitative Analysis Transcript Coding Speech Development
CASE Lab — Communication and Speech Emergence Lab
  • Analyzed 100+ pages of qualitative transcripts, identifying recurring communication and engagement patterns.
  • Synthesized findings into structured insights and applied qualitative coding to strengthen rigour in ongoing research.
The CASE Lab team with a Cerebral Palsy Awareness award A CASE Lab meeting over video
06 · Photography

A travel log

Brooklyn Flea under the Manhattan Bridge archway
Dubrovnik hillside seen through a taxi windshield
The Boulder Turnpike with the Flatirons in the distance
A terrace overlooking cypress gardens in Marrakech
Umbrellas over a seaside terrace on the Adriatic
A canyon walkway looking down into the gorge
A red West Village café patio with striped awning and umbrellas
Red rock spires at Garden of the Gods
A reflecting pool framed by an arch in Marrakech
Scroll to turn · ← → arrow keys
07 · Off the screen

Crochet

Finished crochet tops laid out — teal, cream, striped and ruffled Wearing the cream and raspberry crochet top
Wearing the sage green crochet top
me in my pieces

Thanks for stopping by.

Always happy to talk design, research, or a new idea.

Currently in New York, --:--

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Made with ♥ by Laila · 2026 ↑ Back to top