Farewell! :’)

AHHHH! This position completely changed the trajectory of my career journey for the better. I’ll always be so grateful to Valerie, Maddy, and Suloni for taking a chance on me (a fine artist with absolutely no professional training or experience in graphic design). I also want to thank De’sha for being a mentor to me since I joined the Design team. I am so much more confident in my capabilities and skills because of all of them. Leilani was also a huge inspiration to me, and I’m thankful for her mentorship and help as I grew into the role–she was always someone I could go to and ask a second opinion from.

To all the current and future design STAs — trust in yourself that you are very capable and have so much potential. It’s hard to see in the moment, but with every project and training exercise, your design skills are growing exponentially. <3

– Marissa

Documenting Summer Marketing

Animated Reel:

This was my first time really creating something in After Effects from scratch (that wasn’t for training). I started with some sketches De’sha and I made– which were crucial in the initial steps of building out each animated segment. (Note: I also copied the style of our pre-existing animated pre-roll)

I created the elements in a way that would allow them to be animated (ex: tassle was separate from the cap, individual dollar bills, etc.) There was a lot of back and forth between Illustrator and After Effects to make sure certain elements were suitable to be animated.

After the elements were built out, I began animating. I think in the future it would be wiser to finalize the transitions between each segment and then individually animate, but whatever process is easiest and most efficient for you is probably fine. I would save the masking of text and certain elements towards the end, once you have the transitions and smaller animations of elements done.

Tips:

• Think of creating a ‘pre-composition’ in the main Comp 1 panel as similar to creating a ‘group’ in Illustrator and Photoshop. Select a group of elements and right click -> Pre-compose… -> Enter a New composition name and click ‘OK’. Then, double click on your Pre-comp to see the individual files within it and apply edits.
• I essentially made each segment into its own composition (Top 3 Reasons, Get ahead, Affordability/Save Money, Be Anywhere, Summer logo)

• Applying Easy Ease/Ease in/Ease out can help objects appear to move more smoothly. Select your keyframes -> right click on the keyframes -> Keyframe assistant -> ‘Easy Ease’

• To create a loop, hold the option key and click on the time clock next to the transformation (position, rotation, etc.) -> click where it says “transform.position” and type/replace with loopOut(). Then all of the keyframes in the transformation should loop infinitely, and you can make adjustments as needed.

Summer Marketing Social Media:

These are all of the posts I’ve created or helped work on since my last blog update. There are also a couple of stories I helped create between these posts as well. I think my favorites so far have been the bulletin board ones, as they feel real, personal, and have lots of small fun details.

(3/31 )Leilani and I were made aware of AFR 320C being added to our list of $500 courses which meant we needed to update and reupload a few finalized assets:

• Website edits
• COLA email graphic
• Tuition Guide
• Animated Pre-roll

I reorganized the animated pre-roll course list segment to fit in AFR 320C, then I moved on to the COLA email graphic. This course title was quite lengthy because it is cross-listed with 3 other courses–PLUS it had 1 core and 3 flags. (AFR 320C/HIS 320T/MAS 320C/RIM 320C Power and Place: Making Texas History)

Summer Marketing Social Media

• Instagram Reel (2/25): Top 3 Reasons to Take UT Summer Courses
  • Animated elements and transitions in AE based on sketches De’sha provided.

• Instagram Post (3/4): Announcing the UT Summer Course Schedule is Live!
  • Populated PS post-it mockup with various Summer Marketing-related elements and text. Final text edits applied by Leilani.

Updated Animated Pre-roll:

Speedway Banner Finalization:

Real Banner Example:

Final Design:

Mockups:

Summer Marketing

Spring Texas Parent Ads

Description: Texas Parents newsletter graphic

Inspiration:

Drafts: