STA Blog

Isa Melendez

Week 3 – Isa

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🫐 Week 3 🫐

Summary

This week I have been working on a lot of internal LAITS projects!

Some of them I can’t get into here since they are a secret (teehee), but I can get into my progress with the Computer Flyer Poster!

Admin Office Computer Support Flyer

LoFi Sketches

I started messing around with the layout of the poster. I kept doing HiFin iterations, but I was advised to do soem sketches, so I went back to the basics.

These are some options I came up with! After getting some advice, I came up with more iterations:

Overall

This week has been pretty chill! I took my STA photos and have also been editing the background out of all of them still as they come in.

Week 2 – Isa

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🫐 Week 2 🫐

This week I have been focused on doing some graphics for LAITS and building a consistent brand for them. I’ve been messing with the hierarchy of the admin office support flyer. One of the STA’s has been giving me feedback.

This is what I had before:

Feedback I got: Change the font to Roboto instead of Helvetica, incorporate more LAITS color

Using that, I came up with the following iterations. I did a version where I only changed the fonts, one where I tried to add some color, and the third is one I was honestly just messing around with how I could add more colors/reformat it.

Feedback: work on visual hierarchy and try to match it to the previous “ring the bell” flyer, they’re meant to look like part of a set

Using all of this, I came up with this latest version of the flyer:

🫐 Overall 🫐

It’s been really nice iterating on the posters I initially made a while back! Looking at them now I find new ideas coming to me a lot easier. I spent a little too long at them last semester, haha.

Week 1 – Isa

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🫐 First week back! 🫐

Transitioning Back

Summer break was really fun! I spent a majority with my family, it was super nice to be able to spend time with them. We watched the World Cup together, it was really memorable this year.

Now that I’m back, I’ve been getting used to walking around on campus again and working out my schedule with my job. As everyone is settling into their classes and deciding whether to add/drop, my work as a Design STA has been very manageable!

All week I have been working on the STA cutouts. All it involves in cutting out the background of each photo of the STAs’ and cleaning it up. Photoshop has been the platform I’ve used for it and it’s very simple work!

Usually the flow for me in doing this project is:

  • Identify the student I’m going to mask the background of
  • Open one file in Photoshop
  • Drag the rest of the files of that same student into the same Photoshop file
  • Use the object selection tool to select the subject
  • Apply a layer mask
  • Clean up anything the selection tool missed
  • Repeat until all photos are properly masked
  • Export all layers into separate PNGs
  • Place the files into the right folder

It’s pretty simple once you finish the first STA! It’s a lot of files, but I do have ample time to get it done. Getting back into properly naming files is a good habit I need to keep building, too.

Overall, my first week back has been really good!

✧⋆ 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.