Current Sta

Presentation Graphics

March 3, 2026 By Shanda Horm

STA 2026 PRESENTATION GRAPHICS

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My focus for most of February has been the graphics for the STA 2026 Presentation which I’m overseeing! This is the biggest project I’ve acted as art director for. While I keep track of the assignments I provided to other designers, I have my own task to work on: the walk-in animation.

— Walk-In Animation–

Progress as of 2/18/26

Initial Mood board

Initial Mock Up

Storyboard

Frames: First Iteration

Feedback: First Round

It was decided that the aesthetic for presentation graphics should pivot to a more modern gallery style. Some notes for me to keep in mind were unique frame layouts, warm wood flooring, spotlights, accent walls, and essentially anything that supported the modern gallery aesthetic. I was also suggested a layout that I could follow for the frames.

Wall Iteration

Progress as of 2/24/26

Light Fixtures

After a bit of back and forth and tweaking, the backgrounds for the paintings were settled! The next thing to add was light fixtures- suggested by De’sha. The first image is my first attempt at them. However, I was requested to see how it would look if the lights were at different angles- similar to one of our main references. So, I utilized the light assets Asha made for the presentation poster!

Pivot Pt. 2

After some discussion with Lila and De’sha, another pivot was decided! To draw more attention to the frames and STAs, there will be a shift to a white background to all assets. Additionally, instead of statues we will do red velvet rope. It was decided that the statues may distract from the STAs in the frames too much. Below is the main reference for the background for future iterations of presentation graphics.

These are the most recent drafts as of 03-03-26. After adjusting the lighting of some of the STAs, it will finally be time to animate!

Animation

Doing a seamless scrolling animation was a lot more tedious than I thought! Since the animation had 3 main moving parts (roof detailing, frames, and velvet rope), it was a bit difficult to line up the cut from the end back to the beginning without a weird jump. However, with some help from Lila and adjustments, I was able to achieve a parallax effect with little jitters!

FEB 2026

March 3, 2026 By Haley Ma

Texas Politics Project (Feb Update)

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Onto the final stretch for the Texas Politics Project! I designed a presentation page comparing the original designs with my suggested design from the feedback I received. De’sha then let me know about tailoring the comparison a bit more and to organize the figma file with arrows for each change I made!

For presenting, I wanted to note:

Global changes: font, color palette, and spacing

Highlight the specific changes: navigation bar, home page, blog page, graph page

I then created the final presentation page documenting every change from the current website to now! I made sure to highlight global changes and areas I looked over last time like the drop down menu and navigation! It was quite therapeutic seeing the before and after too!

KB Website Redesign

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Another project I am working on is redesigning the KB website to have a modern and refreshed feel! So far I have creative freedom while designing so it is very fun trying all sorts of layouts and designs! Above is some sketches I had in mind before designing some low-fidelity wireframes.

While creating the low-fidelity wireframes, I decided to explore different layouts for the buttons that navigate to a training page! I wanted to implement some variety in the overall visual design of the home page so some brainstorming was needed before completing all the high-fidelity wireframes!

This is where I am currently at while designing the hi-fi wireframes! Designing the icons was my favorite part but now I’m deciding how much variation can actually be implemented! But I am excited to see the multiple drafts all come together!

2026 STA Presentation Poster

February 25, 2026 By Asha Rountree

2026 STA Presentation Poster

This goal of this project is to create a poster for the 2026 STA Presentation following an “art gallery” theme. In the project specifications, I was instructed to split the STAs into two posters while still thinking about how these posters would fit side-by-side cohesively.

This was a fun assignment, because I got to explore different ways to present the STAs within an art gallery format, emphasizing their unique poses and expressions.

★ Design Drafts: To get an idea of how I could lay out the posters, I created a few rough sketches on paper. The left sketch was more classical inspired (primarily focusing on sculptures), while the right ones have a more modern gallery look.

I received feedback to incorporate both sculptures and paintings, and to simplify the layout of sculptures into a 2-D view (my original left sketch used one-point perspective to add depth). Using this feedback, I created the following sketches on Illustrator:

I created drafts of columns to place in the background, and played around with the layout of the photo cutouts. I tried to group interesting poses together in scenes that could be interpreted through sculpture or painting.

On this iteration, I formalized the background a bit more (adding texture, patterns, ect), and made the choice to include the poster title on a plaque to align with the museum theme. I also decided to orient the posters horizontally instead of vertically to leave more room for standing statues.

★ Pivot to Modern Gallery: Next, I received feedback that the current artistic direction leaned a bit too much towards Greek-style architecture, and that LAITS wanted to emphasize a more modern gallery aesthetic. This involved removing the pillars (which left more room for frames), and including more wooden/warm accents.

For my first draft of the modern gallery, I experimented with the layout of a few frame assets Shanda provided me, and thought about how statues could be organized.

I received some feedback to add light fixtures, and to make the frames more organically structured with breathing room around the sides. I also adjusted the frames so that there are even pockets for statues to be placed. I also made the backgound a little darker to make the paintings/statues stand out more.

I’ve begun thinking about how the two posters will fit together and what paintings/photo cutouts will be used. I scoured free photo archives online to find fun and recognizable paintings to include, many of them from the impressionist era. Overall, I want the colors of the paintings, the poses, and expressions to feed harmonious. I also adjusted the height of the pedestals to make sure they are visible over the title plaque.

★ Pivot to a new background: I have received feedback that in order to fully bring attention to the paintings, we will remove the statues, change the wall and floor to lighter colored assets, add velvet ropes, and move the text to the wall. This edit in background will be accompanied by a re-ordering of the picture frames to better convey movement. I was given this reference to work off of:

My objective after this pivot was introduced was to finalize the poses and paintings I would use for each STA. This required a lot of iteration, as I wanted the STAs in group settings to seem dynamic and engaged with each other, so it seemed they all actually belonged in a painting together. It was also a challenge to fit the required number of STAs into the frames.

★ Coordination with other STAs:

With the addition of the new Spring 2026 STAs, I became a little confused with which STAs had photo cutouts I could use and how many STAs total were expected to be on each poster. It was also difficult for me to track which STAs I had already placed on the posters/which ones I still needed. Thankfully, Lila came in clutch by creating this handy Photo Tracking Spreadsheet:

This spreadsheet helped organize and track the cutout statuses of the STA photos. It also made it easy for other STAs, like Thomas, to help out with cutting out the STA photos. Not only was this spreadsheet useful for my poster, but for all graphics being created using the STA cutout photos.

This illustrates the importance of communicating with the art directors and managers of a project to come up with tools and systems to organize a project.

★ Final Poster:

★ Side-by-side comparisons of famous painting recreations on the poster:

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes linked to the golden ratio - Los Angeles Times

American Gothic Grant Wood reproduction, hand-painted in oil on canvas

Amazon.com: Doppelganger33 LTD Edvard Munch The Scream Old Art Painting Reproduction Large Art Print Poster Wall Decor 18x24 inch: Posters & Prints

★ Some of the group painting clusters:

For all of the paintings, I made sure to choose backgrounds that were colorful and engaging, but not too distracting, as the STAs are the center of attention. I ended up adjusting the lighting of some of the STAs with photoshop to ensure consistency across photos.

★ Reflection: Working on a poster with so many assets was definitely a challenge. Although I had creative liberty in my designs, there were specific criteria to adhere to, so it was important to strike a balance. The following are a few lessons I learned:

1) Project scope flexibility: When I first started drafting the poster, I wanted to include grand archways and columns, reminiscent of an ancient art display. However, when the project scope changed to focus more on a modern gallery look, I realized I would have to pivot my creative direction. Later on, the art direction pivoted once more to further highlight the STAs. I learned that even if I’ve started fleshing out one idea, the outcome of the project ultimately depends on the client’s needs and scope, and it’s important to be able to adjust accordingly.

2) Consistency is key: I learned that In a poster with so many different paintings, poses, and people, It was important to retain an element of consistency. I ensured the sizing of the photos, sizing of frames, and the lighting on the photos remained consistent. I also replicated a few group poses across both posters so that the posters felt connected and cohesive.

3) Organizational tools make life easier: Lila’s spreadsheet really helped me track and choose STA photo cutouts for my poster. It shows how much of a difference something simple like a spreadsheet can make in the efficiency and clarity of a project (especially one handling lots of assets).

Frontera Scholars Collective Logo

February 18, 2026 By Kate Shih

Frontera Scholars Collective Logo

Client: Jonathan Cortez

Task: The Frontera Scholars Collective (FSC) would like a logo that will be the branding mark for their organization. They want something clean and polished, while also providing an exciting feel to the design.

Status: Design proposal sent

Inspiration

I started by looking at inspiration based off of want the client wanted the logo to look like. He wanted the logo to be a dragonfly with stained glass style wings. Additionally, the colors had to be blue and gold.

Sketches

I then made a couple options, creating different dragonflies and trying out different text placements.

More Iterations

After receiving some feedback, I fleshed out and colorized some of the options from my sketches.

Design Mock-ups

We then chose 3 logos from my 6 and made some mock-ups for the client.

Feedback

I got a lot of feedback from the client on these three logos. Overall, he wanted the design to be more detailed and realistic. He referenced this photo a lot as a guideline for the orientation and level of detail he wanted. He also gave some suggestions on making the tail shaped like the US-Mexican border and incorporating the name into the wings.

Revisions

I tried to implement most of the feedback I was given. However, I had to modify some suggestions a little bit because it just wouldn’t look good visually. The tail looked a little strange being so wiggly and the there was no easy way to shade the wings in a way that showcased the words nicely.

The initial logo, with the tail in the US-Mexican border shape

Because I didn’t love how this looked, I made another version with the border inside the pattern of the tail instead. For both versions, I also put the words inside the wings, just not shaded into them.

An alternate logo, with the US-Mexican border shape inside the tail.

I then had a meeting with the client to discuss these iterations. He ended up liking the second option more, but he wanted me to also add the words “UT Austin” somewhere on the design.

Final Designs

With all this in mind, I made 3 final designs.

January – February Projects

February 12, 2026 By Tomas Marulanda-Mesa

-Spring 2026 Voting PSAs-

In January, I focused on making three separate designs for the Spring 2026 Voting PSA’s, Register to Vote, Early Voting, and Election Day.

Register to Vote PSA

Out of these two styles, I combined the two to make the background blue and the text red, leaving less white space. The hand was moved on top of the frame in order to convey the imagery of the hand dropping a ballot into the ballot box.

Finally, the hand was scrapped and replaced with a vector of multiple people with voting sheets. The text was right adjusted and a motif was established with the top bar of red, white, and blue stripes.

Early Voting PSA

This design went through the most iterations, starting with the first one which included a photo of two people showing their voting stickers. The second iteration replaced the image with a vector of a crowd walking over to a polling station.

Later, the hand was brought back, this time painted over and vectorized. “Skip the Lines” was also changed to “Cast an early”. In this iteration the striped motif was brought back in.

The final version added stars to fill in some of the empty blue space, and the informative text below “VOTE” was adjusted left. The stripes on the sides were also cut in half.

Election Day PSA

This design went through one continuous iteration with little major changes. In Photoshop, I created the main project file for the design, and used Illustrator for the voter sticker asset. Just like the previous two designs, I used the red, white, and blue stripes, and included the informative text on the bottom.

-COLA Texas German Dialect Project-

Starting in February, I picked up some of the banners for the Texas German Dialect Project

Word Order

Initially, the Word Order and Verb sections were combined into one single banner, however, there was too much information to cover to fit into one banner, so each of the two sections were split into their own single banner. We are still currently waiting on client feedback, as there is still a decent amount of white space to cover.

Verbs

This section is so far the one with the most information I’ve worked with, and we are still waiting on client feedback in order to see how we can condense the information in order to fit the length of the banner.

Save the Date STA Presentation Flyer

February 6, 2026 By Sasha Kenney

Save the Date STA Presentation Flyer

Recently, I was tasked to create the flyer for this year’s STA presentation. The theme for this presentation is art gallery.

IDEATION + SKETCHING

I began this project by drafting several different compositions for the flyer, starring my favorites.

The art director for this project, Shanda, agreed with my favorites, so I continued to tweak those specific layouts, using the LAITS logo for the color scheme.