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STA Blog

Haley Ma

Haley Ma

8/24-8/28

August 28, 2026 By Haley Ma

✿˖° ⋆ KB Home Page (8/28) ⋆˚✿˖°

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My first week back I revisited my past home/landing page redesigns and finalized my hi-fi frames especially with the page’s layout and content! It was fun to apply my internship experience when it came to researching and ideating as well. I’m looking forward to getting these designs implemented soon!

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✿˖° ⋆ French Textbook (8/28) ⋆˚✿˖°

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I was onboarded on a new project called “Planning & Organization – French Textbook” where I get to gain more project managment experience and leading a project! My first task was to create our Replacement Image Sourcing Spreadsheet which is where we would document alternative images to replaces the images we have on file now!

Filed Under: We are STAs

Summer 2026

August 28, 2026 By Haley Ma

✿˖° ⋆ Summer 2026 ⋆˚✿˖°

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Making my hologram!!!
⋆⭒˚.⋆ Exploring NYC ⋆⭒˚.⋆
Edit of a 3-D model I created (click me!!!)

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This summer I had the opportunity to work as an UX/UI design and creative direction intern for a fashion tech startup, frontend development intern for a marketplace startup, and a design intern at a hologram studio in NYC!

I truly got so much work and real-life experiences working on my projects and got to step out of my comfort zone and learn more about different design and tech fields!

Filed Under: We are STAs

May Updates

May 29, 2026 By Haley Ma

Swedish Studies Promotional Sticker

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The Swedish Studies program was searching for a sticker design and I was given the opportunity to make the vision come to life! The client had some requirements being:

  • Swedish Fish Candy Representation
  • Generic Name: “UT Swedish”, “Swedish Studies”
  • Tagline: “Study Swedish”, “Take Swedish”

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I first started by sketching some potential designs focusing on a kiss cut, circle, and square shape. I wanted to see how much I can explore when it came to the layout of the sticker since the fish will be the main focal point.

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Transforming my sketches to vector images was quite fun! It’s always great to get some more experience in Illustrator and learn more about the platform. Plus I think the initial fish design turned out really cute.

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After I created the initial designs I got feedback from De’sha to try to hone in on realism rather than an illustrative design to be sure the fish is recognizable as the candy. From there, I replicated the shape of the candy and delved more into detail for the fish’s fins and scales!

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After finalizing the candy fish, I created five designs that explored different sticker shapes and colors! Seeing the difference between the first iteration and the final iteration was so cool to see! I think the realistic approach was the route to go!

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Next, I created some design mockups of the stickers and it was time to create the design proposal to send off to the client!

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Now it was off to send to the client and await for her feedback! I’m so happy I was able to join this project and get more experience in logo design! It’s so fun to work with vectors and see the finished product!

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KB Website Update

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I revisited the KB website wireframes I did and iterated on them to produce the hi-fi frames! What was challenging was figuring how to build consistency amongst the training pages since different authors made different trainings. On the other hand, creating the icons and layouts was fun and brings a lot of visual variety to the hi-fi home page!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

March & April Updates

April 21, 2026 By Haley Ma

2026 STA Presentation

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This semester I had the opportunity to present at LAITS’s annual STA presentation! I was so excited to talk about one of my favorite projects being my work on the What Jane Saw badge design. Although it was a bit nerve-wracking standing and talking in front of so many people, I’m grateful to be in this position surrounded by such lovely people who listened to my presentation!

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2026 STA Presentation Virtual HTML

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I also assisted in updating the Virtual HTML for the 2026 STA Presentation! Shanda had communicated to me that I would need to update the banner, graphics, and poster to reflect this year’s theme!

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Luckily, my fellow STAs had already made such beautiful graphics and templates so I adjusted the frames to reflect the subtitles. First, I decided to use a sky background for all the frames but Shanda recommended to add some variation and we decided it was the better choice!

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Next I worked on the banner created by Tomas! Thanks to his helpful template, I created two versions of the banner, one being an orange theme and the other a blue theme!

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What I have been showing so far were just mockups, so the real challenge came which was working in HTML. I hadn’t had much experience working with HTML so there was definitely some learning I had to do. Some challenges I ran upon included:

  • mobile layout not matching desktop layout
  • text not being centered
  • finding accurate fonts

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However, I did get the website to look like my mockups as closely as possible! I added any new assets and sent over the finished website to De’sha and Shanda for approval!

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I’m so glad I had the opportunity to work on this project as it brushed up some of my HTML and it was rewarding to be able to send the link to my family and friends knowing that I helped create the graphics and adjusted the layout for the website!

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check the website here: https://virtualmeeting.la.utexas.edu/meet/2026-laits-sta-presentation

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WCAG Compliance Project

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I have also been working on the WCAG Compliance project alongside Kate and Trisha! So far, I have going over the website that LAITS oversees and checking if it is compliant with WCAG’s standards!

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This project has really shed some light in how accessibility in websites needs more awareness and as a designer and a programmer, I hope to advocate for it more through my own projects and through adjusting the websites as well!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

FEB 2026

March 3, 2026 By Haley Ma

Texas Politics Project (Feb Update)

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Onto the final stretch for the Texas Politics Project! I designed a presentation page comparing the original designs with my suggested design from the feedback I received. De’sha then let me know about tailoring the comparison a bit more and to organize the figma file with arrows for each change I made!

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For presenting, I wanted to note:

Global changes: font, color palette, and spacing

Highlight the specific changes: navigation bar, home page, blog page, graph page

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I then created the final presentation page documenting every change from the current website to now! I made sure to highlight global changes and areas I looked over last time like the drop down menu and navigation! It was quite therapeutic seeing the before and after too!

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KB Website Redesign

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Another project I am working on is redesigning the KB website to have a modern and refreshed feel! So far I have creative freedom while designing so it is very fun trying all sorts of layouts and designs! Above is some sketches I had in mind before designing some low-fidelity wireframes.

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While creating the low-fidelity wireframes, I decided to explore different layouts for the buttons that navigate to a training page! I wanted to implement some variety in the overall visual design of the home page so some brainstorming was needed before completing all the high-fidelity wireframes!

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This is where I am currently at while designing the hi-fi wireframes! Designing the icons was my favorite part but now I’m deciding how much variation can actually be implemented! But I am excited to see the multiple drafts all come together!

Filed Under: Fall 2025 – Spring 2026, We are STAs

January 2026

February 3, 2026 By Haley Ma

ANS304C Course Graphics

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I was tasked to help with designing a canvas homepage and dashboard banner for ANS304C! Lila had established a collage styled design so I then created different iterations with photos moved around!

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After some feedback from the professor, he preferred the bar at the bottom and asked to switch around the images some more after removing one!

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Now the final iterations were completed! I had to change the collage format for the dashboard vs the homepage banner, corrected the text, and added the logo footer for the title slide!

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Refining Course Graphics (Jan Update)

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I updated some more backdrops by mostly making the images darker and having more contrast! I also changed the swirl design to a more suitable one and revised the gradients!

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Texas Politics Project (Jan Update)

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After having a meeting with the developers, I made sure to keep the design simple yet modern but also correspond to what was already on the website!

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Most of the revisions included:

– Turning “Read More” text into buttons

– Establishing colors for headings, sub-headings, and body text

– Reformatting spacing in body text

– Adding an area for the authors and dates

Filed Under: Fall 2025 – Spring 2026, We are STAs

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