We believe creative collaboration across borders is the future of social impact work.
We are on a mission to 1) eliminate barriers of awareness and understanding preventing social and environmental movements from achieving their fullest potential, and 2) create more equitable and meaningful career pathways for creatives around the world. In order to do that, we believe in examining communication problems from a systems perspective, and empowering communities involved through the entirety of the creative process.
Systems approach
Systems-thinking is the foundation of our approach to visual communication and creative production. We understand that preventable miscommunication happens all the time and can hinder or hurt a cause or movement. For that reason, before any project we carefully consider the ecosystem we are entering, the assumptions we are making in solving a communication problem, and any potential unintended consequence.
Community Empowerment
Our broad perspective is coupled with a commitment to community empowerment at every stage of our process. What that means is challenging the systems that aim to help communities but actually disempower them, involving community leaders and experts at the discovery stages, and bringing in local talent into the creative process for even more informed practice and global professional equity.
THE COLLECTIVE
Hagar Elsayed (she/her)
FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Hagar is an Egyptian-born, U.S. based visual communicator with over 8 years of experience in editorial media production, social research, journalism, and nonprofit marketing. She brings together a broad creative skillset, an analytical mind, and a deep desire to do good. Her unique position between the media arts and the social sector has allowed her to advance a number of social causes including in the areas of refugee/immigrant rights, climate justice, food systems, gender/sexuality, and war/conflict through strategic visual communication.
Hagar founded Ayouni in 2021 after working as both an independent designer and agency professional. In her time as a designer and strategist, she has partnered with a number of international NGOs and U.S. nonprofit organizations including Rockefeller Foundation, Thought for Food, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Refugee Solidarity Network, Global Justice Center, Human Rights First, and more on creative communication projects.
Prior to her independent career, she worked at CNN in international research and media management. She has also held positions at Coursera, Brave New Films, and Emory University. She is an Emory University alum with a degree in Film & Media Studies and Sociology. She graduated Summa Cum Laude after defending her honors thesis on the news media’s role in mass incarceration in the US.
Hagar is fascinated by communication and social systems, and devotes both her career and intellectual curiosity to exploring this intersection. She is an avid world traveler, amateur chef, and a lover of the outdoors, music, dance, and literature.
Einxel Reyes (he/him)
Graphic Designer & Illustrator
Einxel is a Chicago based graphic designer and illustrator with a broad background in branding, menu design, and social media marketing. His love for design started from creating band posters for fun for local bands in Chicago.
He previously worked with The Pact Collective: a mutual aid collective based in Brooklyn. At Pact, he helped create educational posts to help fundraise for grassroots organizations including climate justice, social justice for queer POC, and more. He is interested in supporting causes that provide care to communities of color and bring people together to support their community from food distribution to volunteering.
Outside of art, he enjoys bouldering, traveling and thrifting.
Delaram Ghaeini (she/her)
illustrator & Graphic designer
Delaram is an Iranian-born, Netherland-based, illustrator and graphic designer with a background in visual arts including painting, 3D design, sculpting, and digital illustration.
Delaram brings her artistic talents to Ayouni Studio’s team through creative and conceptual illustration and design support.
Delaram is currently enrolled at Haarlem Campus in the Netherlands where she is studying Creative Media in Business, and has previously studied Handycrafts at Shiraz University in Iran. She is interested in supporting causes related to refugee/immigrant rights as well as sustainability and climate justice. Outside of creating art, Delaram loves a good fantasy story whether in books, movies, or comics.
Christie Lee (she/her)
Social media strategist & wordpress developer
As a social media strategist, Christie understood social media’s immense power to help brands better connect with their target audience. As a result, she pursued a career in social media and digital storytelling. Her decade-long experience spans working on corporate marketing teams and as an independent consultant. Christie specializes in building social media and digital content marketing strategies for B2B and B2C brands across different industries from technology and startups, to nonprofits.
Christie also has over 5 years of experience in designing WordPress websites. She specializes in building high-quality, user-friendly, and responsive websites with any custom requirements.
She is passionate about helping dreamers and changemakers increase brand awareness and reach, and improving website traffic and SEO rankings through the magic of social media. She masters the art of building a digital relationship between you and your target audience. Christie is currently based out of Atlanta, GA.
Simon Brombach (he/him)
Editorial & Information designer
Simon is a German born and based graphic designer and community organizer with a background in social research, nonprofit management, and digital media creation.
As the co-founder and project manager of Plan Impact, a nonprofit organization supporting cross-cultural youth development initiatives in collaboration with various NGOs, Simon works diligently to support social movements through creative communication and community building.
Simon has self-developed a broad creative skillset with a particular interest in editorial design, data visualization, and web design. He brings passionate and informed creativity to the Ayouni Studio team.
Simon enjoys exploring questions about the world we live in and constantly challenging himself as a life-long learner. He is a word traveler, hobby musician, and extreme sports enthusiast. He strives to create and do work that helps to make the world a more equal place.
Aesha Goodwin (she/her)
VIDEO & motion design Specialist
The common thread in Aesha’s life from childhood into adulthood has been her love for storytelling. As a Video and Motion Design Specialist, she takes that same passion for storytelling and uses it to help brands identify and develop their own stories, translating them into video and animation. These videos are created to enhance each organization’s image as well as effectively communicate the core message to their audience in an engaging and enlightening way. Using her seven years of video production experience in industries from sports entertainment to social justice and impact, Aesha has defined a strategic process for video creation that takes into account the particular needs of each brand and their audience. She believes that when it comes to the world of video, each piece has it’s own unique thumbprint and requires a custom job to get the desired results.
Aesha received her Bachelor’s Degree in Film/Video Production from Western Carolina University, has held positions at the Carolina Panthers, NASCAR, and CBS, and has supported a number of social impact organizations including Blavity, ParentsTogether Foundation, Do Big Things, and Accelerate Change Network. Aesha is currently based in North Carolina where she enjoys reading and spending time with her family and pup.
We lean on our growing network of independent artists, designers, researchers, writers, and technologists to form the dream team tailored to each project.
Interested in joining the collective? Email join@ayouni.org to learn more.