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Isaac Sarfo Adjei
Portfolio, No. 1 Communication research, design & digital media Accra / San Marcos
On the cover
Save Asaase Yaa Advocacy illustration Ghana, 2025
A piece built to put the buyer inside the transaction — asking whose river, whose forest, whose child paid for the metal on your wrist.
There’s a question I keep coming back to: when the answer comes from a machine, how do we decide whether to believe it? My thesis takes that question to college students. My essays are where I think out loud about AI, online platforms and the companies behind them.
Look over a student’s shoulder these days and there’s a good chance ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini is open in another tab. Every answer those tools give asks for a quick judgment: do I trust this? I want to understand how students actually make that call.
I’m working from S. Shyam Sundar’s MAIN model, which suggests that the features of a technology can set off mental shortcuts. I’m focusing on two. One is about form: whether the way a tool presents information makes it feel more real. The other is about agency: whether knowing a machine, not a person, is doing the answering makes it feel more objective.
Instead of measuring those shortcuts from a distance, I’m sitting down with undergraduates and asking them to talk me through the AI tool they use most — what makes them believe it, and when they stop.
I write these on my blog, Hermes Post, usually when a question won’t leave me alone.
Why the companies doing the most CSR work are often the least able to talk about it, and what that costs them.
Dec ’25The environmental bill arriving behind the server racks that make everything else feel weightless.
Nov ’25Endless shelves of animate products — restless, self-aware, and caught in a loop of trying to attract a buyer.
Nov ’25The metaverse as promised, the metaverse as delivered, and the gap where the communication happens.
Oct ’25Where copyright sits when the tools that make the work were trained on other people's.
Oct ’25A working comparison from someone who uses both daily, rather than a benchmark table.
Oct ’25Asking the machine directly about the future of the job it is most likely to change.
Portrait of Isaac Sarfo Adjei · port 2.JPG
I am a second-year master’s student in digital media communication at Texas State University in San Marcos. Before that, I studied Publishing Studies at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana.
Most days I’m at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where I’m a graduate assistant. I help with a course called AI and Automation for Media Professionals and look after the school’s web content, so I see the questions my thesis asks play out every week.
I also design. The posters and the Save Asaase Yaa illustrations further down are that side of me, and making persuasive messages has taught me a lot about how to take them apart. Now I’m applying to PhD programs in communication and advertising, hoping to keep doing both and to build a life in teaching and research.
Making persuasive messages taught me how to take them apart.
Four illustrations on galamsey — illegal small-scale mining — and what it takes from Ghana's rivers, forests, and the people who live beside them. The series runs on Instagram as @saveasaaseyaa.
Posters and product advertising built for retail, arts, and student organisations, in Accra and at Texas State.
I’m applying to PhD programs in communication and advertising, and I’d love to hear from faculty whose work overlaps with mine, whether it’s about research fit, a project, or just a conversation. I still take on the occasional design project, too. Email is the quickest way to reach me.
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Cover · Portfolio, No. 1
On the desk: the green notebook. It opens to the contents, with the cover piece taped inside.
On the cover: Where do you get your gold from? — Save Asaase Yaa, advocacy illustration, Ghana, 2025. A piece built to put the buyer inside the transaction — asking whose river, whose forest, whose child paid for the metal on your wrist.
Research I · My master’s thesis
On the laptop: the red-pencil notes mark the two cues I study.
Every answer ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini gives asks for a quick judgment: do I trust this? Working from S. Shyam Sundar’s MAIN model, the red-pencil notes mark the two shortcuts I study — form, whether the way a tool presents information makes it feel more real, and agency, whether knowing a machine is answering makes it feel more objective.
I’m sitting down with undergraduates and asking them to talk me through the AI tool they use most — what makes them believe it, and when they stop.
Research I · Essays
The Hermes Post: the lead story up top, six more essays as it unfolds.
I write these on my blog, Hermes Post, usually when a question won’t leave me alone — about AI, online platforms and the companies behind them.
Profile II · Isaac Sarfo Adjei
A portrait print, clipped to the résumé.
A second-year master’s student in digital media communication at Texas State University, after Publishing Studies at KNUST in Ghana. Most days I’m a graduate assistant at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, helping with AI and Automation for Media Professionals and looking after the school’s web content.
I also design — the posters and the Save Asaase Yaa illustrations are that side of me. Now I’m applying to PhD programs in communication and advertising.
Feature III · Advocacy illustration
The phone: scroll the feed to see all four illustrations.
Four illustrations on galamsey — illegal small-scale mining — and what it takes from Ghana’s rivers, forests, and the people who live beside them. The series runs on Instagram as @saveasaaseyaa.
Portfolio IV · Campaign and brand design
Nine posters, pinned. They fan out as you scroll.
Posters and product advertising built for retail, arts, and student organisations, in Accra and at Texas State.
Back page V · Contact
A letter, half out of its envelope, and a card with every way to reach me.
I’m applying to PhD programs in communication and advertising, and I’d love to hear from faculty whose work overlaps with mine, whether it’s about research fit, a project, or just a conversation. I still take on the occasional design project, too. Email is the quickest way to reach me.
Colophon
Everything at once. Tap any object to go back to it.
Thesis, essays, illustration & design — words, images and design by Isaac Sarfo Adjei. Cover illustration from the Save Asaase Yaa series.
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