Germanic Studies Flyer Pt.2

Here are some updated designs of the flyer that I have been working on, and the ones I showed Dr. Boas on our meeting. Since then, I’ve sent him a link to a box folder with these drafts so that his team can give me some feedback. Specially considering the final product for this design is not only going to be a printed flyer, but apparently also a digital flyer, as well as  a printed poster.

Option 1 – Title aligned to the right, No person,  in: Blue, Purple, & Red

Option 2 – Title aligned to the right, Yes person, in: Blue, Purple, & Red

Option 3 – Title aligned to the top, One with Berlin TV Tower, One with Person climbing (positioning tbh), and One with pointier, Alpine-looking mountain range behind

Setting Up a New Exhibit in Canvasser KB

Project: Setting Up a New Exhibit in Canvasser KB
Client: Internal
Completion Status: Complete
Staff Guidance: Suloni Robertson, Estella Sun
STA Team Members: Cristina (myself), and Ingrid
Description/Plans: To create a new KB step-by-step tutorial on how to set up new exhibits through Canvasser for Texas Beyond History projects.  This was a project Ingrid and I worked on based on the work I’ve previously done for TBH so that future STA’s get task-specific instructions on how to work for this client through a medium that they might not be as familiar with.

Ingrid set up the KB, and I wrote the steps based on my past experience, gathered some helpful screenshots, and made a cute little banner.

Setting Up a New Exhibit in Canvasser

Germanic Studies Flyers

Happy new year!!! I know January is almost over but here’s to hoping that the rest of the year brings great things to us all 🙂 In other news, let me tell you about this project…

Project: Germanic Studies Flyer
Client: Dr. Hans C. Boas
Completion Status: In progress…
Staff Guidance: Suloni Robertson, and Abriella Corker
STA Team Members: Cristina (t’is I), and during my winter break absence, Abriella Corker
Description/Plans: To design a unified flier that explains to UG students what is needed to get a German certificate and/or a German major.

So, first things first, I started out the project back in December (pre winter break), by proposing a few design ideas like colors, fonts and mockups to define a style, and send those out to get feedback and also have Dr. Boas answer additional questions I had.

These are a few examples of what I ideated:

As I waited for a response, I started drafting some ideas of what I thought the format could look like.

Afterwards I had to leave for the winter break, so Abriella took over the project…

Eventually, with the support of Suloni and others in our daily check-in meetings (brought to us by the Omicron variant therefore having to revert to remote work mode), I was able to play around with the colors and style a bit more.

Moving on, I sent two of the previous styles to Dr. Boas, and now I’m awaiting feedback. I’ll keep you up to date with this project as soon as possible….

TBH: Site Explorer Page Update

Okay, so this week I had a mayor revelation regarding this project. Turnes out, that because the Site Explorer page was developed as a final version (not thinking future additions would ever be made), there are two problem in the way it is currently set up on Canvasser…

Taking into account that the site explorer page looks like this:

Let me explain the two problems…

1. The top part (the one with the map, image and site info) was made by compressing all the visible elements into a single image, as opposed to having the map as one part and the site info as an independent cutout. This is a problem because, considering each of the current sites has a flat image as such (aka there are actually 65 versions of the same map), I would need to edit each of those compressed images in order to add the Hendrick & Ware location point on the map and make it visible even when the user browses other locations.
   • After discussing this with the team, we gathered that a quick solution for this issue would be to break the format by individually overlaying the new Hendrick & Ware location point over all the site images on Canvasser. However, though efficient, this solution is not sustainable, therefore we don’t recommend it if more sites will be added to the Explorer page down the road. (Something the client has yet to clarify).
2. The second obstacle regards the addition of the new site on the list. It seems like the word bank is also a compressed image (not text that automatically moves accordingly if you add a new space in the middle). This is a problem because the list is alphabetically ordered. Therefore, to add the new site as “Hendrick-Ware” (naming convention decided by the client) in the H section, I need to build a completely new list and reprogram each name on Canvasser.
   • This time, the short-term solution the team I and I came up with was that I could just add the “Hendrick-Ware” name at the end of the list. It won’t be alphabetically correct, but it would be a quicker fix. For aesthetics purposes, I could additionally switch around the “Hendrick-Ware” name into, “Ware-Hendrick,” considering the last three locations also start with a W. But one, we need approval from the client, and two, this would ultimately not be a sustainable long term solution either if more sites were to be added. (Especially since there are only 2 or 3 more spaces left on the list).

So, that’s where we’re at right now…

KB – Basics of Client Communication Update

Project: Updating the Client Communications KB
Client: Internal/Design STA program
Completion Status: In progress…
Staff Guidance: Suloni Robertson
STA Team Members: Cristina (it me), Angie Huang, Ingrid
Description/Plans: To revamp the client communications KB.

I didn’t drink my poetry juice this morning, so I don’t think I can rhyme this whole post. But it is December now (woo hoo!), so that’s just a little holiday reference for you. Anyhow, let’s get to it…

A long time ago I wrote my first KB: Basics of Client-Based Project Communication. Well, a few weeks ago Angie was tasked to revamp it and make it into a training. So, since I was the original writer, I was brought in as a consultant. But these days, my main task has been to remake and improve the example images. So, without further a do, here are the original ones compared to the new ones. Enjoy…

As you can see, some of the mayor changes I made were on the colors and position of the annotations. Angie and I agreed that moving the notes to a single side would make it look cleaner, and getting rid of the colored text would reduce confusion since some topics would land on blue on one image, but the same topic would be a different color on the next and stuff. So, yeah. I’m still waiting on some feedback and stuff, but…

TBH: Site Explorer Page

Project: New Site Addition to the Site Explorer Page
Client: Steve Black & Emily McCuistion
Completion Status: In progress, early stages.
Staff Guidance: Suloni Robertson, Estella Sun, and the WebDev team
STA Team Members: Cristina (esa soy yo)
Description/Plans: To add “Hendrick and Ware Plantation” to the Site Explorer https://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/explorer.html This involves putting exhibit/place name and a locational dot on map on list, and then adding an image, a blurb, and timeline for the pop-up when exhibit selected.

This project has slowly been in the works for the past week, but basically I need to add a new spot (that being one of the sites we worked on from the Rusk County map project) into this other interactive map…

In order to do so, though, I need a lot more information than I was given. So to summarize what I need, I made the following annotated mockup to send the client a detailed list of things for them to send over. Take a look…

For now, and probably till we get back from Thanksgiving break, I’m waiting for them to send over these assets. Nonetheless, in the meantime I also worked on recreating two very important assets, those being the orange button, and the yellow pin. Why? Well, because no one has really worked on this project in a long time, and those files (at least the editable psd versions) were lost along the way.