2026 Summer Marketing | History of Football Course Poster

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My first summer marketing assignment was to create a promotional poster for the History of Football course. I was instructed to make sure the poster is eye-catching with a strong cover image, so that students walking by will take notice.

★ Design Iterations: Because the project was operating on such a short timeline (the poster needed to be distributed quickly, as it is marketing for the summer), I immediately started creating a polished draft for the poster.

To follow existing visual design guidelines for the course, I used the color gradient and photo assets that were in the course box folder. I was also inspired by the online course promotions for this year and wanted to make the poster look consistent, so I added in some dynamic, rounded lines. I additionally included stars to break up the text and evoke imagery of Texas. 

After creating this draft, I received feedback that the design needed to be a bit more punchy to fully capture the eye-catching effect needed to advertise the course and the bold spirit of football. I was advised to take a look at newspaper headlines for football. Taking these considerations into account, I refocused my design approach to align with a newspaper theme, and created the following designs:

These designs were much more effective at capturing the energetic, bold spirit of football with the typeface and focus on a central image. The client decided to go with the right design, and the design was slightly edited to better emphasize that the “summer and online” aspect of the course.

★ Final Design:

★ Project Status: Completed (04/02/26)

★ Project Reflection: This is the first project I have worked on with such a tight deadline. My first iterations were created on one shift, and the next shift I was asked to finalize the poster. I learned a lot about managing my time and prioritizing both good design and functionality of a product; with such a short working time, I made sure to prioritize including all necessary text and information on the poster, even if the design was not yet perfect. Additionally, I was able to alter the poster to better communicate the exciting, bold nature of the course, making it a more engaging and effective promotional material.

2026 STA Presentation Poster

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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:

★ 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.

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:

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.

★ Project Status: Completed

★ 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).