STA Blog

Bridget

Bridget

8-28-19

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Last Day of Work

I won’t be returning in the fall, so today is my last day of work, sadly. I’ve really enjoyed my time here as an STA. I highly recommend the experience to anyone who’s interested in design/technology and looking to grow their skillset as an undergrad. Everyone at LAITS has been kind and patient, and it’s a very comfortable place to learn and ask questions because so many people have different kinds of expertise. I’ve become a lot more confident in my graphic and web design abilities since I started working here, and I’m thankful to Suloni and all the other STAs here for making this job a positive experience.

8-13-19

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https://cms.la.utexas.edu/entity/open.act?id=aa2ff206ac1148aa6d2e151b16cba224&type=page

 

8-7-19

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Not much is new, except I’m still working on the Knowledge Base table of contents, vlabs, and also a new project updating some pages for the LAITS site (they aren’t published yet so I can’t post anything for that yet). Some other STAs have been making suggestions for things to add to the KB, so Ive been adding those, plus my own pages. I also did this assignment where I made a little 80 x 80 gif, which was really fun (I’ve never made one before). Here’s what I made:

And here’s an interactive I made recently with a fade animation:

More interactives…

7-30-19

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LAITS Knowledge Base

Not much to add since last time… I’ve still mainly been working on Cascade and Vlabs. I also started making a table of contents page for the LAITS Knowledge Base site, which will be a resource for new STAs. It organizes the most recent and up-to-date posts so they’re easier to find and all in one place. Suloni asked me if there was anything I would add to the current table of contents, so I added a few new topics that I think should be covered (they’re grayed out until I create pages for them). Over the next few weeks I’ll be filling these in and updating this blog as I make progress. I tried to add topics that covered key information people need to know when they’re being introduced to Cascade/the Web Editor, to make the learning curve a little less steep. One thing that’s difficult at first is trying to figure out which things you edit in Cascade and which things you edit using the Editor, so hopefully the overview pages will make that clearer.

STA Training: Table of Contents

7-15-19

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Vlabs Highlights

The past few weeks I’ve been pretty focused on Vlabs–creating assets for the interactives, building them in Canvasser, doing peer review. We’ve realized that some of the content that initially got marked as interactive can be added to the html as text, which has been super helpful, especially with sections that are very dense and overly complicated. We’re also adding in the videos directly to the html, as opposed to adding them to interactives, which looks a lot cleaner. There have been a few snags (missing animations, formatting issues), but it’s been really satisfying to see the site come together after all of our work. Aesthetically it’s much cleaner-looking, and the content is less confusing when it’s laid out flat.
Here is an interactive that I worked on from start to finish, so you can see the process.
Making the assets in Photoshop:
Making the assets interactive using Canvasser:
The approved interactive:
https://laits.utexas.edu/canvasser/canvasser_content/vlabslab7/lab7section4fayumdepression.html
What it looks like on the site:

Cascade Highlights

I’ve also been updating some of the COLA help guides. The goal is to make these comprehensive, so when we get a question from faculty/staff about Cascade or the COLA Web Editor and it’s not already in the help guides, we try to make a page or edit an existing page to address that issue. I’m also training some of the newer STAs on Cascade, helping them learn it by making a test site.

5-2-19

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HRC Visit

Monday we all took a trip to the Harry Ransom Center to view the current exhibit: “The Rise of Everyday Design: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and America.” I always love learning about the history of art and design, and I really enjoyed going, especially since I didn’t know much about this movement going in.

The Arts and Crafts movement started in Britain in the mid-19th century and lasted into the 20th century, migrating to the U.S. in that time. It began as a reaction against industrialization and emphasized quality craftsmanship and simple design (the idea was that construction is as important, or more important, than design).

What was interesting is how the early Arts and Crafts reformers had very specific principles of design which was often closely tied to their ideas about political reform (many of the British designers were socialists). They produced informational materials, like this book called “The Grammar of Ornament” by Owen Jones, which is a kind of compendium of geometric patterns for architecture:

Their influences were very broad: Medievalism, Pre-Raphaelite/Classical, Folk, Middle Eastern (like the above page), and especially forms from nature.

One of my favorite things at this exhibit were these textile patterns by the British designer William Morris (1834-1896), who was inspired by forms of flora and fauna. Some of his notebooks were on display showing his sketches of nature. I was really struck by how modern these look, you still see patterns like these all over, in people’s homes, etc, and yet all these designs were created in the 1800s.

The movement grew in popularity, especially among the middle class. This drove commercially-scaled production of furniture, textiles, etc, which was contrary to the founding ideals.

(All images from Wikimedia Commons)