STA Blog

Isa Melendez

✧⋆ Week 8 – Isa ⋆✧

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🍓 Week 8 🍓

✧⋆ Ring Bell for Assistance Flyer ⋆✧

My previous version of this was a little too busy, so I got the following feedback:
- Maybe too much illustration
- Needs more professionalism
- Shift to a more minimalist design
- Tone down color palette to 2 colors or 3 colors

I was given this poster as an inspo (left), so I set off in this new direction (right):
I have also been working on another poster which I will get into, and I needed to make these seem like they were part of the same brand, so I did these two variations:

✧⋆ Admin Office Computer Support Flyer ⋆✧

I was tasked with revamping this poster, making sure it's:
- Easily digestible
- A representation of the LAITS brand
- Clear in it's visual hierarchy
- Keeps all information present in the flyer

Original flyer:
To start with, I kept the horizontal format:
I then got feedback to make it vertical and fous more on the visual hierarchy. So I got to these versions:
I then came up with more versions, trying to better match the previous poster rather than treating them as separate. One of them is an image whereas the other I drew the laptop in the same sort of style the bell flyer had:

✧⋆ Week 7 – Isa ⋆✧

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🍓 Week 7: Training Progress 🍓

✧⋆ Ring Bell for Assistance Flyer ⋆✧

LAITS has been doing a revamp on some of the flyers around the office. So I was tasked with redesigning this flyer at the front desk:
I went to the LAITS style guide to keep their colors and apply the correct logo! For the graphics I knew I wanted a hand pressing down on the bell, so I got to sketching out a few iterations.
I was going for more of a clean aesthetic, so I needed to clean up the outer stroke through Illustrator.

These are the two iterations I have currently, these are still subject to change!

✧⋆ Basic Training: Shape and Pattern ⋆✧

This training explains how shapes can be tied with certain emotions. Here are some shapes I made for certain emotions, rendered both in 2d and 3d!
These are some more somber emotions, where I went for rounder shapes.

✧⋆ Week 6 – Isa ⋆✧

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🍓 Week 6: Training Progress 🍓

✧⋆ Basic Training: History of Design ⋆✧

One of the trainings I've done this week had to do with learning all the different art styles there have been throughout the decade! I decided to go with the 1950s – 1970s: Pop Art era!
I really wanted to use Photoshop since I have less confidence in that application, and thankfully there was a tutorial for Photoshop!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axSaoVbOZNk

Using this tutorial, I made my own design inspired by the Pop Art Era. I noted that a lot of the subjects used in Pop Art were iconic as they have "recognizable imagery." I wanted to make Pop Art for this current era, and I needed the perfect subject to represent that. The first person that came to mind for me was Alysa Liu!
It was very fun being able to use Photoshop again and seeing the kind of effects I can apply to an image! I used to prefer Photoshop over Illustrator back when I was first learning the two, and though I wouldn't say that's the case anymore, it's really cool to see what Photoshop is capable of!

✧⋆ Overall ⋆✧

It's really cool to see the kind of trainings available to Design STA's! Things have been calking down with the end of the semester, so being able to focus on improving my own skills in Adobe programs has been really nice.

✧⋆ Week 5 – Isa ⋆✧

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🍓 Week 5: Training Progress 🍓

✧⋆ Portfolio Review ⋆✧

This week's STA meeting revolved around reviewing our portfolios! I didn't have one, so I worked on making a slide deck detailing one case study of mine.
Through this, I've learned the style I want to go for whenever it's time for me to make my portfolio! The little doodles are something I will want to keep. I was also advised by peers that the website Framer would work best for what I want to do given that it has to most customization.

My takeaways:
- A portfolio is the one place a creative gets to express themselves, so this is a great opportunity top be able to stand out!
- You have to tell a story with a portfolio, walk the user through your thinking process
- The hardest part for me is starting, there is perfection paralysis, but it's important to get over so you can start applying to internships and jobs



✧⋆ Week 4 – Isa ⋆✧

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🍓 Week 4: Training Progress 🍓

✧⋆ Helpdesk Place Card Redesign ⋆✧

✧⋆ After showing the last designs to the client, they loved it! 
✧⋆ This card will be placed in over 1,000 classrooms this Summer to help UT faculty and staff. I'm so honored to be contributing in a way that will help UT faculty and staff get the information they need!

✧⋆ Passion Project ⋆✧

✧⋆ Last week's STA meeting we covered how to present properly. I learned that a vital part of presenting is storytelling, to be able to walk the audience through an entire project from start to finish assuming they knew nothing about it is key.
✧⋆ My passion project involves the work I've done with the Texas Cultural Trust! I won't get into too many details, but this project has taught me a lot about how to communicate more effectively with stakeholders.

✧⋆ We learned that the project was out of our scope. We needed to tell our client a more realistic goal, but this only happened deep into the project. Our team had already expressed these concerns way before, but we never talked with the client about these concerns. I took away that I needed to not be so afraid to speak up and not waste anybody's time.

✧⋆ I have presented to my organization who are already aware of many of the details, so having to present this project in front of people who had no context was both a challenge and very helpful.

✧⋆ Tier 3 Course Studio Graphics ⋆✧

✧⋆ I was tasked with making an animated intro for a class of my choice. I decided to go with an informatics course called Online Communities. I started ideating with my iPad, sketching out general placement and icons I was thinking of including.

✧⋆ Storyboard: I wanted to have each icon rotate back and forth in the animation
✧⋆ Final: I decided to make the course name and number look as if it were a message and I animated it like one! I made it so that only the white icons rotated back and forth as I found it too much with every graphic. I went to Illustrator first to make all the graphics, made each layer separate and named it properly, and brought that into After Effects to animate.

✧⋆ Overall ⋆✧

✧⋆ Having to present was really useful! I need to improve on my storytelling and rehearsing beforehand would help me with my stuttering issue and confidence.

✧⋆ I haven't used After Effects too much, so having to animate studio graphics was out of my comfort zone. It was really interesting to learn and I am a lot more comfortable with making keyframes now!

Week 3 – Isa

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✨🍓 Week 3: Training Progress 🍓✨

✧⋆ Tier 2 Studio Graphics ⋆✧

Last week I spent a lot of time making the Digital Wall monitor for this tier, once I had that set in stone, the rest of the graphics came quickly!

I was a lot more focused on simplicity this time around. I made sure to stick to a single primary color, that being the red, and made sure that was consistently shown throughout all the graphics. It was interesting to have to think about the wardrobe the professor would have to keep in mind. I never thought about it before, but it’s true that they could clash with the background with certain colors. For example, wearing red for this studio set would surely clash, but a green or blue would help the professor stand out.

Helpdesk Place Card Redesign

This is my first project where I’m working with real clients! I was tasked with redesigning the current Helpdesk Place Card. This is the current design:

They are usually on grey desks, and the current design makes them blend in, so I needed to make them stand out whilst still adhering to the LAITS Style Guide. This would mean sticking to their color palette, using the right fonts, and the right logo.

My first iteration:

This was a nice direction and I was told to make a mockup of them, so I put them on a gray desk much like how it would be in real life. Here are the initial mockups:

I received the following feedback:

  • Align LAITS logo with the icons
  • Try capitalizing titles and increasing the size
  • Change the light orange and light blue to white
  • Make gray lighter in QR area

The alignment of the text/icons and whether the titles should be all caps or not were the main question. Keeping all this in mind, these were my next few iterations:

Centered
Left aligned
All caps, centered
All caps, left aligned

The favorite of all the iterations was this one:

I’m still waiting for more feedback, but I’m pretty sure this may be the final version we end up going with!

Overall

It’s so interesting to see how many iterations you have to go through before you end up landing on the one that everyone is happy with. Design is an iterative process and rarely is ever linear, so it’s been a really cool journey to see how a design can develop!