I’m Sam Ballantyne, a Senior Graphic Designer with over 15 years of experience delivering high-quality design across property, retail, and commercial sectors in New Zealand, Australia, and the UK. I currently freelance from Taranaki, collaborating with agencies and direct clients to produce brand-led, production-ready design across digital and print. I’m known for calm problem-solving, strong typography, and the ability to take projects from early concept through final delivery—often across large, multi-stage campaigns.
I work well independently or as part of distributed teams, with extensive experience collaborating remotely with stakeholders, developers, marketers, and printers. My focus is on clear brand identity, robust production workflows, and delivering scalable, print-ready assets that align with campaign goals.
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![EdSaure Brand](https://www.twine.net/signin
Project Overview
Ed.Square is one of the largest and most ambitious projects undertaken by The Property Agency, spanning residential, retail, and community-focused placemaking. TPA was engaged from the very beginning of the project in 2019, when the site was still a vacant lot, and supported its evolution into a fully realised urban neighbourhood in Sydney’s south-west.
The development includes terrace housing, apartments, and a major retail and dining precinct — with terrace homes being a relatively new product type in the Australian market at the time. The brand needed to launch strongly, then continually adapt as new stages, products, releases, and community initiatives were introduced. This required a flexible yet consistent visual system that could scale over several years while remaining recognisable and relevant.
TPA delivered a complete end-to-end suite of collateral for Ed.Square, including branding, display suites, brochures, masterplans, digital campaigns, social content, signage, and on-site marketing. The project demanded long-term thinking, close collaboration, and a high level of design consistency across a very broad range of touchpoints.
My Contributions
I worked on Ed.Square from its earliest stages and remained involved throughout its evolution, both while employed at TPA and later as a freelancer. Because of this long-term involvement, I contributed to almost every aspect of the project’s visual output, helping shape and maintain the brand as it grew over time.
My role covered a wide range of design work, including brochures, print advertising, display suite graphics, digital assets, social media content, masterplans, stage plans, and campaign collateral. I worked within the established brand framework while adapting layouts and messaging for new releases, product types, and community events, ensuring the brand remained cohesive while still feeling fresh and responsive.
As the project matured, the brand needed to flex — accommodating new residential stages, evolving retail offerings, and an increasing focus on lifestyle and community. I helped apply and refine the visual language across these changes, balancing consistency with progression. Much of the work required careful coordination across print, digital, and physical environments, with a strong emphasis on finished artwork, production accuracy, and scalability.
This project demonstrates my ability to work on long-running, complex developments, contribute consistently over multiple years, and operate as a trusted designer within a larger team — maintaining quality, clarity, and brand integrity across a very large body of work.
![OpenFIRE Brand](https://www.twine.net/signin
Project Overview
OpenFIRE is an open-source light gun system developed by a small, distributed team of contributors, of which I am a part. I began working on the project as a personal initiative, and it has since grown into a collaborative platform combining custom hardware, firmware, desktop software, and a global DIY community.
The project is inspired by the golden era of arcade shooters from the late 80s and 90s, but is designed for modern environments — home setups, emulation systems, and custom arcade builds. As a non-commercial, community-driven project, OpenFIRE prioritises accessibility, transparency, and long-term usability over profit.
Because the system spans software, firmware, and physical hardware, the visual identity needed to function across a wide range of real-world contexts, from firmware menus and configuration tools to documentation and physical components. The branding was approached with the same discipline as a commercial product, while remaining flexible enough to support ongoing open-source development.
My Contributions
Within the broader OpenFIRE team, I led the branding and visual identity for the project, creating a cohesive system that could support both technical and community needs.
As an open-source project, OpenFIRE is not driven by commercial scale or profit. The branding was designed to be practical, extensible, and easy for others to work with — supporting collaboration, iteration, and long-term sustainability rather than short-term marketing impact.
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