STA Blog

Current Sta

GOV350K Statistical Analysis in Political Science: Course Graphics

By

GOV350K Statistical Analysis in Political Science: Course Graphics

I’ve been tasked with creating a Tier 1 (Base) package of course graphics for Professor Stephen Jesse’s course GOV 350K Statistical Analysis in Political Science!

➜ Design Drafts: I started out this assignment by ideating on a few designs that could be used in the different components of this course graphics package (including Canvas banner, dashboard, ect). My instructions were to use blue tones, and blurry imagery of data/charts. I used Adobe Photoshop to combine different stock images I found, and added different effects and elements until I came up with these designs:

Here is a visualization of what these graphics may look like on a Canvas Homepage Banner:

We decided to stick with the rightmost graphic. Using this graphic, and the “Topaz Blue” color requested, I created the PowerPoint Backgrounds, iPad Overlay, Canvas Callout Buttons, and Canvas Banner and Dashboard (in style B).

These assets were finalized after a few adjustments, such as making sure the UT branding on the Canvas Banner is white to provide contrast with the background, and bolding the Canvas Callout Button text to better fill the space. I also ended up lightening the contrast and de-emphasizing deep blue tones on the Banner and Dashboard graphic to better match the topaz blue coloring of the text box.

➜ Reflection: This course graphic set helped me practice timely communication both my Art Director (Lila) and the client, ensuring our client received all final assets in the timeframe that was requested. I also feel like I now have a strong understanding of how to use the course graphics template to create original assets.

➜ Project Status: Completed (02/06/26)

✿˖° ⋆ Fall 2025 Projects ⋆˚✿˖°

By

✿˖° ⋆ Fall 2025 Projects ⋆˚✿˖°

── ⊹ ࣪ ˖♡˖ ࣪ ⊹ ──
Summer Marketing Social Media Posts

── ⊹ ࣪ ˖♡˖ ࣪ ⊹ ──

As I joined the summer marketing team, I’ve been able to create some social media posts centering around holidays and alerts for the upcoming summer schedules! Creating social media posts has been good practice for me to adapt my graphic skills for different ideas and styles!

── ⊹ ࣪ ˖♡˖ ࣪ ⊹ ──
Texas Politics Project

── ⊹ ࣪ ˖♡˖ ࣪ ⊹ ──

I have also been tasked with updating the “Texas Politics Project” in terms of its website design! So far I have updated the home page, a standard blog post, and a singular graphic result! I’m excited to continue this project as I get the chance to develop my web design and UX design skills (ﾉ ˃ˋᗜˊ˂ )ﾉ !!

Minimalism | Spring 2026 Roster Poster

By

Minimalism | Spring 2026 Roster Poster

For the past couple weeks, I have been working on the roster poster showing off the spring 2026 STAs. The overall theme for these posters is “art gallery,” and specifically for my half of the roster, it is “minimalism.” The roster I have been tasked to work on includes the video, audio, and computer support STAs.

Ideation

I began by finding references and inspiration images to direct me in this task. I also was interested in the concept of including perspective in this poster, as seen below.

Initial Drafting

However, after several attempts and receiving feedback, I found that the inclusion of perspective in this project would skew the photos and affect the legibility of the overall poster. I kept these reference images as my central inspiration still, though. From here, I began various iterations of a poster, considering feedback I received along the way. Seen below are various versions of this first idea as I continued.

(at this point, I learned that the official orientation for the roster posters had been switched to horizontal)

More Ideation

From here, based on feedback I received, I began to work on a few other options for this brief using these images as my main inspiration.

I proceeded to sketch out some ideas.

From here, I began these versions in Illustrator.

Initial Drafting

I was advised to stick with the last iteration of this design.

So I began tweaking it to make the frames bigger, try thinner lines throughout, and play around with the style of the color key. I also experimented with what this layout would look like with the stylized frames previously used.

From here, I changed the stroke around the frames in order to not lose the specific dimensions required to fully represent each STA (1.2×1 in), while also testing how they would look actually showing an STA.

I then pulled the color block text style I initially used on the first iteration on this current title to see how it would look with this layout.

Some feedback I received based on this iteration:

  • change the font of the “2026”
  • eliminate the stylized frames
  • make the lines thinner than the frames
  • experiment further with color key style

At this point, I was making super tiny edits. And I mean tiny. Such as changing lines around slightly, as seen in this reference showing which specific lines to edit.

From here, I also tried an iteration with “Student Technology Assistants” fully spelled out in the color block style.

This helped us land on some final final edits, including:

  • keep the shorter title, just rearrange to say “Spring 2026 STAs”
  • bring the text of the color key in a little bit to not be aligned with the title
  • increase frame sizes to 1.1w x 1.32h

Current iterations:

STATUS: IN PROGRESS

Life & Letters

By

Life & Letters

Client: Life & Letters

Task: Life & Letters (official COLA magazine) wants a WordPress template that they can update periodically with their print publication.

Status: In progress, working on the About page

Visit the live site: https://utw11345.utweb.utexas.edu/

Creating a Main Menu Design

I created a design for the main menu. Previously, the hierarchy of the text felt off and there was too much white space. I created a new design that kept “Sections” and “Collections” the main categories, but also gave more emphasis to the “Research”, “Art & Culture”, and “College Communities” categories, which were really tiny before.

By

Spring 2026 STA Roster Poster: Layout and Texturing

This past week has been all about layout and texturing. After making some graffiti assets which could be used as filler content and title work, I began to work on the formation of the STA frames.

What I quickly realized is how cluttered the image looked with the brick wall background, so instead, I switched back to the plain grey concrete wall in order to make names more readable and for texturing to be just a little bit more efficient.

After making more space for future STA’s, I will work on the department names and how to present them as part of the artwork as a whole.

http://sta.laits.utexas.edu/blog/2025/11/13/55292/

October

By

OCTOBER 2025

──────────────────────────────────────────────

— Final STA Pop Art Poster —

After many iterations, we finally reached a final design for the STA Pop Art Roster Poster!!

──────────────────────────────────────────────

— Summer Marketing Pre-Roll Animation —

My first group assignment in a while!! I’m excited to work alongside Kyra and Lila (again!!) on this project. We are to collaborate on creating an animation advertising summer classes offered at UT while emphasizing that this is something you can do without it impeding your summer.

Our first task was to create environments for different scenes. I was assigned work from home and office space environments. I was also tasked with creating an illustration for the UT tower.

Office

Work from Home: Kitchen Space

Tower

As the list of assets required for the pre-roll were getting finalized, we proceeded to create and rig the characters that will show up in the animation. I was tasked with two students and a boss character!

Character 1

Character 3

Boss Character

Overall, it’s nice work on an animation project again! As I get closer to graduating, it’s become prevalent to me what skills I want to be better at, animation being one of them. I look forward to seeing what the rest of this project has in store for me as I go into my final semester!