ABOUT
COEN SHABAKA DESIGN is a women-led, multidisciplinary design studio in New York City and Kingston, Jamaica.
Our practice brings together communication design, visual storytelling, publications, exhibition and environmental design, and digital media, with experience across cultural, educational, non for profit, and public-sector contexts.
We believe thoughtful design can make complex ideas, histories, and organizational missions more accessible, engaging, and meaningful. Working across print, digital media, video, exhibitions, and physical environments, we translate content into clear and compelling visual narratives and develop coherent visual systems that can adapt across platforms and formats.
Our approach is informed by diverse cultural and international perspectives, together with an understanding of how historical, social, and local contexts shape the ways stories are experienced and understood. We value local knowledge, lived experience and community, creating space for multiple voices and approaching each project with sensitivity, depth, and authenticity.
our Approach
TEAM
COEN SHABAKA DESIGN is led by Creative Directors Nadia Coen and Sara Shabaka.
NADIA COEN is an interdisciplinary creative director, exhibition designer, and visual artist based in New York City. With more than twenty years of experience, her practice spans exhibition and environmental design, visual storytelling, identity, publications, and experiential media for museums and cultural institutions.
Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Nadia brings an international and cross-cultural perspective to her work. Her projects include the National Civil Rights Museum, Smithsonian National Postal Museum, Alice Austen House Museum, and MoCADA. Her parallel visual art practice informs her approach to space, material, image, and the experience of the viewer.
SARA SHABAKA is an interdisciplinary designer, creative director, and educator based in Kingston, Jamaica. Her practice spans exhibition and environmental design, visual identity, publications, and branded experiences, with a focus on storytelling, community, and cultural identity.
Over the past two decades, Sara has led projects in London, New York, and Kingston for museums, cultural institutions, and global brands. She lectures in Visual Arts at the Caribbean School of Architecture at the University of Technology in Kingston, bringing teaching and mentorship into her wider creative practice.