About Storyline Lab

Storyline Lab is the independent creative practice of Raha Tabar, working across brand identity, graphic design, art direction and photography.

I help brands find a visual language that feels distinctive, coherent and true to who they are, then bring that language to life across identity, imagery, digital experiences, campaigns, events and physical touch points. My approach sits somewhere between strategy and instinct. I’m interested in the thinking behind how a brand should look and feel, but equally in the details that make it memorable: typography, composition, colour, imagery, tone and the way all of those elements work together to create a world around a brand.

Before establishing Storyline Lab, I spent more than a decade working commercially with brands including the Financial Times, Morningstar, WGSN and Flywheel. That background gave me an understanding of brands not simply as visual systems, but as businesses: How they communicate complex ideas, build trust, differentiate themselves and connect with the people they want to reach.

Over time, my work moved increasingly into the creative side. At Flywheel, I developed a visual language for its Alternative Data business, translating complex data, products and methodologies into presentations and collateral that needed to be clear, engaging and memorable. That intersection of ideas, information and visual communication eventually became the foundation for Storyline Lab.

Today, my work spans brand strategy and identity, graphic design, art direction and photography. Depending on the project, that might mean creating a visual identity from the ground up, directing the look and feel of a campaign or event, designing a website or piece of editorial collateral, or creating the photography and imagery that gives a brand its character.

My wider creative background also shapes the way I work. I’ve studied visual design, brand strategy and UX/UI, alongside earlier studies in philosophy and psychology, and I have a long-standing practice as a painter. Those different disciplines have all fed into the same fascination: how ideas become visual, and how what we see changes what we feel and understand.

I have completed further education brand strategy, visual design, and UX/UI. Prior to this, I found that my earlier studies of philosophy, psychology, and painting (rahatabar.com) has always been complementary to learning design.