Sandra

Sandra Van der Wildt was born in Antwerp in 1973 to a family where graphic design, typography and photography were part of everyday life. Her father worked in print and as a small child she enjoyed accompanying him to work. This is why at a very young age, Sandra already knew she wanted to be a graphic designer and then maybe one day, art director. From 1989 on Sandra attended Saint Lucas Academy in Antwerp, a school known in Belgium as one of the best, not to say the best, for graphic design. In 1992 she specialized in "Audio-Visual and Publicity Art" at Saint Lucas High School. Sandra graduated in 1996 as "Master of Audio & Visual Arts". Still eager to learn, she decided to post graduate in Video Art in 1997. She loved these new media, which combined graphics and typography. It was very new and experimental then. In the mean time she was already working as a freelancer for a publicity agency. With the help of Brussels 3D animation company TRIX, Sandra succeeded in her postgraduate project. TRIX was kind enough to let her use the latest hardware and technology. Sandra learned how to work with UNIX, Composer, Maya, Flame, etc... TRIX was one of the pioneers in 3D animation world wide; they won the 2nd price after Toy Story that time. After succeeding in her postgraduate project in 1999, Sandra was asked to stay and work for TRIX. Later in 1998, she started working at a Dutch-Belgian web radio station and multi media company called "Axxes". Axxes was also a pioneer company. Around the year 1998, using Flash and streaming media was just about to be introduced in Belgium and the Netherlands. These were the heydays of what was later called "the dotcom boom". Sandra started quickly to learn all about web design. Soon she was given ambitious projects for customers like Kipling and the NMBS (the Belgium National Railway Company). The very first website of Kipling was made totally in Flash technology what was very revolutionary at that time. It was awarded in the US as "Best Flash Web Site" of the year. A few years later, Sandra was promoted to Art Director at a Belgian multi media-company. She built out concepts and designs that were later translated in coding and html by a team of more than 20 designers. They developed projects for corporate customers like Sony Europe and the Flemish Government. In 2003, Sandra was granted an educational leave without pay to go study "Egyptology" at the University of Leuven. The ancient Egyptain culture had fascinated Sandra for years, and during these years at university she learnt all about archeology and hieroglyphs.