Week 11

 

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab

 

Project: Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab Website

Client/Prof: Department of Psychology

Started on: March 29, 2023

Completion status: In progress

Staff guidance: Stacy Vlasits, Marianne

Description/plans: Move the content from the current existing lab website to an updated theme.

In this project I will help move the content from the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab websites to a new theme that Marianne created.

 

 

This is the theme of the current website and it has been the same for the past ten years! See, the LAITS logo used here is also old.

 

 

 

This is the new theme that Marianne created. It has the update Department of Psychology logo

 

 

As I was doing this migration I realized that the menu on the original website is different than the one for the sample website so I created more sections on the header in the template.

 

One styling issue that I am currently stuck on is whether to create a completely new section for some content that could be a subsection of an already existing section in the new template or just add the heading.

 

I tested to see how the look of having all the headings as they are in the original website would look like along with’s Marianne’s theme.

RACE Lab Logo

Project: Resilience and Adversity (in) Children’s Ecology Lab Logo
Client /Prof: Professor Ibekwe-Okafor
Completion status: Started March 2, 2023
Staff guidance: Maddy
Description/plans: Design a logo/branding for Prof. Ibekwe-Okaforwork that can be used on her website.
To be completed: before Summer

We recently received feedback on our first draft of logos from Prof. Ibekwe-Okaforwork. She emphasized the importance of displaying her lab’s core values: resilience, adversity, race, ecology, policy, and research. She liked the silhouettes but requested a more gender-neutral presenting child. She also wanted to see if we could incorporate ABC blocks, puzzles, or gears into the logo. Some of these more detail-oriented qualities might not translate as strongly when it’s in a small logo, but I tried my best to create something legible and recognizable.

First draft:

After feedback:

STA Presenter Intros

Project: STA Presenter Intros
Client: LAITS
started on: March 20, 2023
staff guidance: Maddy
STA team members: Lorena, Carrie, & Luisa
description/plans: Last week I made a template for other STAs to help out with creating the STA Presenter Intros. I then delegated the Audio STAs to Lorena, and this week Carrie and Luisa started working on the other STAs.

It feels very different to be in the art directing position. The STAs who are helping come to me for guidance and feedback which I’m not used to (usually I am the one asking!) It’s fun to organize and talk with other STAs about the project though. The overall task doesn’t seem too complicated after I made the template and typed out instructions. I had to take a pause from the intros since I had to prioritize the RACE lab logo, but I’ve been trying to cut out knick-knacks and STA photos to make to process smoother for Lorena, Carrie, and Luisa (They are the best!)

We have 12/14 completed!

Template:

Finished Presenter Intro by Lorena!!!!

STA Presenter Intros I completed:

 

Studio Stickers (the mug is my favorite):

Course Graphics Re-edits

Project: Tower Tools
Due On: March 22
Notes: This project was reopened for Canvas Banner edits. The client requested to change the name of the banners.

Latest Edit:

UTFC Logo Design 

Project: Connexions Francophones Logo
Notes: Lately I’ve been exploring various brushes through illustrator for the UTFC logo. This time around for the logo I was trying to add a textured look to the design on procreate. I’m using the Dry Ink brush on Procreate, which is what a previous STA used to create the other icons for UTFC. First, I made a vectorized design in Adobe Illustrator with a textured edge. Then I imported it into Procreate and used the Dry Ink brush over the selected area of the logo. So far it’s still a work in process but still a good direction!

Week LXVIII

A few things this week. One of them I actually got to design from scratch!

TGDP 6

Several rounds of edits which consisted of a lot of tiny line edits. For the last one, I finally got around to a background. My first idea was a more intricate escher-y pattern, but I think simple works best here.

STA Presentation – Lower Thirds

Yay! A design project for me, and I got to use grainy textures?

Unsplash has a good paper texture, which I trimmed the edges of as a test. I also used it for the tape, cropping and darkening it.

Maddy suggested clear scotch tape, and maybe some kind of Roboto if we want to mix fonts with the handwritten one.

Then, I got the suggestion “Something now is feeling pirate map-y and we want to feel more school notebook-y.”

 

I cropped several variants in case we need to mix it up. Here, below, is a mockup of it with a shadow effect.

That was the most fun design thing I’ve gotten to do in a while. Sadly, it only lasted a couple days.

STA Presentation – GSD Posters

So, it turns out I’ve been chosen to present! I don’t have much to show off visually yet. The powerpoints have a template, and I’ve just started sketching an outline. Soon, I’ll have… something to show. It will be an interesting narrative, because the GSD posters were more of a logistical than a design task – we had a template, and most of the actual work was photo sourcing, but it was an art to coordinate all of it I suppose.