At just 13, Laney Punarate BFA’24 already mapped out her destiny: create art, and do it in Portland. Growing up in Thailand and New Zealand, Punarate dreamed of the artist’s life she could one day lead after reading about Portland in a memoir. When the whisper, “I think it’s time to go to Portland” became impossible to ignore, Punarate didn’t hedge her bets — she applied to one art school: the Pacific Northwest College of Art.
Five years and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree later, Punarate works as a freelance graphic designer and art director with clients including A24, Lululemon, Chili’s, FISK, Formula 1, and 24 Hour Fitness. “I didn’t know I would come this far. So many of my opportunities came from PNCA,” she says.
Punarate started out in the 3D Design and then Fine Art programs before settling on her graphic design major. Classes such as Associate Professor and Chair of Graphic Design Kristin Rogers Brown’s Center for Design course helped solidify her passion for integrating her artistic expression into advertising, and with the help of Assistant Professor of Design David Chathas, she landed a design resident position at Wieden+Kennedy, one of the largest independently owned advertising agencies in the world.
When it came time to develop her thesis project, Punarate found herself amidst a heartbreak. “I was so sad, I couldn’t think about anything. I was eating a sandwich every day and noticed, ‘wow, sandwiches actually made me so happy,’ and I wondered about food getting me through a heartbreak.” Her mentor suggested looking into this curious connection between heartbreak and sandwiches. From there, Punarate found inspiration from the graphics on dollar-store fix-all pills and the vibrant food trucks in New York City. Then, the idea materialized: explore the concept of sandwiches as medicine to help get through different kinds of heartbreak.
“Everyone told me it was too crazy, but I said, ‘trust me, I can do it,’” shares Punarate. For the project, which also served as the final installation at Portland’s FISK Gallery, Punarate hired three people to serve sandwiches out of a maximally colorful food truck, with each sandwich acting as prescribed medicine for various varieties of romantic wounds. Visitors would tell Punarate’s team which type of heartbreak they were experiencing, and would then be prescribed a “Healing Sandwich” — such as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to heal “delulu” heartbreak or a turkey avocado sandwich to heal the heartbreak of being unwillingly single.
“I was impressed by the number of people who told us deep and personal stories,” Punarate remembers. “People were so willing to tell strangers about their heartbreak.”
Several clients began to pay close attention to her work as a result of Punarate’s thesis project graphics. “A connection from my job at Wieden+Kennedy contacted me to see if I wanted to design Valentine’s Day postcards to promote the A24 film ‘Babygirl,’” Punarate says. “He liked my work about love from my thesis and asked me to do something similar.”
Punarate has moved back to Thailand since graduating, but she carries the lessons and connections gained at PNCA with her wherever she goes. She plans to expand her practice by starting an advertising agency of her own with her father and furthering her freelancing career, whether by reaching out to new clients or continuing existing relationships. Looking back at the teenage dreamer who once pinned all her hopes on a single college application, Punarate reflects with amazement on the journey that transformed heartbreak into healing, sandwiches into art, and a distant dream into reality.
