STA Blog

Jaclyn Alford

Jaclyn Alford

Feb 18 Update

By

SJCS Logo Update

project: SJCS Logo Update
Client /Prof: 

Initial Task:

Dr. Tatjana Lichtenstein
Associate Professor, Department of History

Dear Suloni,
I hope you are doing well and have had a good start to the new semester. I am hoping you can help me (or know someone who can) with a draft of a revised logo for us. Our current logo is blue and white as seen here: here. (I have also attached it below)

In the last few years, we have invested a lot of work branding our events, activities, and publications and we always use the logo as part of the publicity. However, UT’s colors are “Burnt Orange.” Thus, we often find that we have to go an extra few steps to make the connection between the SCJS and UT obvious. The current color scheme doesn’t make that connection for people right away.

I am therefore asking the Schusterman Foundation, our donors who have to give permission for us to change the color scheme, whether they would be willing to consider allowing us to change the blues to shades of burnt orange. They have yes to considering it but would like to see a draft of such a logo. Can you help me with that?

Everything else would stay the same, just the color blue would change to orange for UT identity.

Warm wishes,
Tatjana

 

Original:

Updates:

Client Feedback:

Dr. Lichtenstein really likes the orange and tan variant you’ve made. They want to make another edit to the logo’s lettering, and would like to see a Roboto font used for “SCJS”.

Client Feedback:

Dear Valerie,
What are your thoughts about the shadows, that was something people though looked outdated, Would it not work to just have the letters now depth?
Tatjana

 

Texas Polish Logo

project: SJCS Logo Update
Client /Prof: Hans Boas

Initial Task: creating a Polish flag logo similar to the German flag logo/word mark on www.tgdp.org

Reference:

 

 

FINAL:

October 31st Update

By

Life & Letters Mobile Prototype

project: Life & Letters Mobile Prototype
Client /Prof: Allen Quigley
completion status: Started Oct. 3
staff guidance: Stacy, Suloni
STA team members: Kevin!
description/plans: create an Adobe Xd prototype for the Life & Letter Allen’s  Illustrator mockups for Stacy and Kevin to use for development
To be completed: 

Allen’s Design:

Here is the link for the prototype/mockup: https://xd.adobe.com/view/394a2a17-75d1-40ec-4ae8-d0fde51866df-4f7b/

And the link for development: https://xd.adobe.com/spec/8970dc6d-3601-4b49-5a6a-dbef6d2b4271-ff41/

I attempted minor edits to the main nav and footer for an overall cohesive and sleek feel.

 

University Writing Center Site Redesign

project: University Writing Center Site Redesign

Client /Prof: Rachel Forsyth and Vicente Lozano–UWC folks
completion status: Started Oct. 3
staff guidance: Stacy, Valerie
STA team members: n/a
description/plans: work with Stacy to develop a new design system for the UWC site that best meets undergrad student, grad student, faculty, and consultant needs while remaining inviting. This can be done through better university affiliation, simplified navigation, concise and helpful copy, visual interest, and people-centered design. (Really excited about this one!)
To be completed: 

Current Site: http://uwc.utexas.edu
Overall feel: friendly, caring, tidy
Initial Meeting notes:
WordPress site
Part of Dept. of Rhetoric and Writing
Updated by Rachel currently, need for styles to be defined/something to pass down to maintain site.need an updated site map, some pages are out of commission or can be compiledStyle: More university affiliation, while up-keeping a conversational, friendly tone

Users:

  • Writing Center Consultants
  • Students
    • both undergrad + grad (grads have additional resources, what the undergrads have + extras)
    • return users vs. new
  • Faculty
Main uses:
  • Appointments
  • Presentations
  • Policies
  • Handouts (used by consultants to then give out physical copies of to students)
To solve:
  • Rethinking navigational organization (perhaps additional menu(s))
  • Problems in the past with finding information/difficulty navigating the site with the main nav.
  • cohesive styles
  • making it more attractive for grad students (fairly newly added as a resource)–letting them know that the UWC serves them, too!
  • need to keep in mind the need for faculty to recognize this as a service for the entire campus (be careful about including department logos; don’t want to demotivate)
  • don’t like all the accordions
  • needs to be able to be easily maintained
Initial thoughts:
  • homepage as ad for service
    • where it can be obvious this service is for grad students, too!
  • produce a style guide and page templates for easier project handoff and application
  • more visual interest!
  • possibly another menu for main/general uses
  • “Make an Appointment” definitely needs to be a menu item

VLabs update and such

By

Vlabs:

Compiled all of our VLabs asset creation instructions into one document right in basecamp:

 

Updated the psd template to provide more instructions and assets:

Additionally, we have been going through the current canvasser creation assignments and removing those that can just be included as flat html! This will be really helpful in taking a bit of work off our plates!

Update on all the things and stuff!

By

STA Presentation–UT Instapoll

 

Last Friday I presented on UT Instapoll–specifically my contribution of making the product credible through:

  • UT branding–i.e. the orange bar
  • Logo design
  • Refining and cleaning up the visual design so that our instructors and students like using the tool! (and keep using the tool)

The STA presentation and the presenters did a great job of showcasing the incredible work of the students here at L-A-I-T-S. It was wonderful to be able to see all the amazing projects the other STAs work on, since the design team doesn’t interact with the Video and Audio too much. Miss Lydia Fortuna said it best when she said, “We are so talented, you guys!”

My presentation can be downloaded here: jaclyn_alford_UT Instapoll_redo or viewed below:

 

IC² Institute Website Redesign

project:IC² Institute Website Redesign
Client /Prof: IC² Institute
completion status: Started April 1, 2019
staff guidance: Stacy
STA team members: n/a
description/plans: create page mockups for the IC² Institute using Adobe Xd, as they are trying to narrow down their image and focus.
To be completed: 

“IC² Institute is UT Austin’s think tank for exploring innovation and entrepreneurship.”

The aims for the redesign is to simplify the navigation and generally clean up/declutter the pages.

Here is the original look:

 

And the current mockup: https://xd.adobe.com/view/990a943e-b1ed-4d36-75d1-97bf8fb44a47-ef3b/

Update 2/11

By

project: Summer Online Courses Postcard
Client /Prof:
completion status: Started Feb 5, 2019
staff guidance: Suloni, Myra
STA team members: n/a
description/plans: create a mailer to inform about summer online courses
To be completed: Feb 8, 2019

Past designs:

New design options:

project: Mellon Scholar Photoshop Flyer
Client /Prof: Mia Carter
completion status: Started
staff guidance: Suloni, Tate
STA team members: Chloe
description/plans:
To be completed: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zVTbTAjzfuu7HF5FjEP-G83k1K7FvSRpiMO_qTIQjcA/edit