March – April Trainings

Animate Simple Course Graphics

The goal of this training is to grasp the basics of Adobe After Effects through some basic animation practice. The instructions were to animate a simple course graphics intro. Here is what I came up with!

I enjoyed working with Photoshop and After Effects to make this very simple course intro. This was a good introduction to the software. I think if I were to go back and revise it I would add some people viewing the art and make the text more colorful.

Logo Design

For this training I was tasked with creating a personal brand/logo. Here are some variations and the final chosen design.

Several elements included in the logo and how they represent me:

• Cat – because I like cats 🙂
• Cap – I wear caps a lot and usually draw myself wearing one
• Pencil – to show that I do illustration
• Star – my cat’s name is Star!
• Red Color – I use red a lot in my art, so using it here makes it recognizable as me
• Kyrartist – My “brand” name!

Logo Animation

For this training I brought the logo I just designed into After Effects to give it some movement! I learned some new techniques like the trim paths feature and how to use the graph editor.

For my first time animating a logo in After Effects I’m pretty happy with this! I like how the star looks like it’s being drawn and the subtle movement of the hand and head. If I were to revise this I would make the logo appear in a more interesting and unified way. Maybe having the head turn around and put some follow through on the hat. I would also like to add movement to the face to give it more personality. Making the eyes blink and the mouth go from neutral to smirking can really bring the logo to life and feel inviting.

Painting in Photoshop

Finally, I completed this quick Photoshop training where I got to explore the different textured brushes.

I’ve mostly used Ps for line art and more flat color illustrations, so this was a nice change of pace. I love how the coloring on the orange turned out. I like the movement in the brush strokes and the variations in hue/saturation.

One thing I would improve on for next time is to refrain from using the color picker. This would help develop my color observation skills.

“Up Next” Slide

Project Overview: During the STA Presentation, there is always a slide that shows who will be up next. Use the other presentation graphics as inspiration to create a design for the up-next graphic. We want it to be cohesive with the other assets as the slide will be placed within the presentation PPT.

Powerpoint template:

Other STA Presentation Assets:

First Draft:

Feedback: Brighten colors, change camera graphic to something more realistic

Second Draft:

Feedback: Change font and camera graphic to match previous STA Presentation assets, remove stars and film strips, add drop shadows to the light beams

Final Product:

Thoughts: A lot of my time during March was spent creating my own presentation for the STA Presentation in April, but in the mean time I also got to create this asset for the overall PowerPoint! I enjoyed working in the theme of “movies” and I think the final design is simple yet effective.

Spring 2025 STA Roster Posters

Project Overview: Design 2 posters that display the STAs, their names, the main title, and that differentiate between the teams. The design will be based on “Movie Concession Stands”. The idea is to have the STAs represented as candy boxes/bags of candy.

I started by sketching out some layouts and finding inspiration photos. My initial vision was to have the teams represented by different bars/bags/boxes of candy.

This is the first draft I created in Photoshop following the original design. It was at this point in the project that we decided to pivot on the design to something more illustrative to simplify the layout, fill the empty space, and save time.

I moved to Illustrator to try a new layout, created with the help of my manager De’sha. In this version, each STA would be on their own mini candy box. This way everyone is equally represented and can blend into the packaging more seamlessly.

I designed some simple candy box designs with placeholders for the photos and names, then got to adding all 75 STAs to the document.

With all the STAs in their candy boxes, I could focus on the border and title design. I was directed to make it look more like the display case from my original inspiration pictures. I also added a key beneath the title identifying each of the teams.

I received some more feedback to shorten the title, turn the boxes on their sides, lighten the background, and add some elements to fill the empty space on the bottom shelf.

In another round of feedback I added some effects to the title, removed the border completely, darkened the color of the shelves, and simplified the popcorn to match the stylistic design of the rest of the poster.

In a final round of edits to make the design look more like a concession stand, I added a 3D perspective to the boxes, changed the title font and changed the key design.

My Thoughts: This project was a little bit of a rollercoaster, but I definitely learned a lot. In hindsight, I think I should have pivoted to Illustrator sooner as I spent a lot of time on a draft that ended up being scrapped in the end. Additionally, asking for more help and feedback in the early stages of the project would have saved time and energy fixing things later on.

Overall, I think the posters turned out fun, playful, and very colorful.

2024-25 STA Blog Banner Design

Project Overview: Design a banner that presents all of the STAs and their names to act as the Design/Coding STA Blog header.

This is the background design I created inspired by the UT turtle pond. I drew this in Krita, then transferred it to Illustrator, vectorized it using image trace, and added text.

By the time I went to add the STAs to the image, some new members had joined our team, so I did some rearranging and duplicating of lilypads to fit everyone. Here’s the final product!

Design STA Hiring Flyer

Project Overview: Design a visually engaging flyer that promotes hiring for Graphic Design and Web Development Student Technology Assistants (STAs).

This project was a large learning curve for me. One of the bigger hurdles was balancing design with practicality (fitting all the required text onto the page). The first drafts either didn’t have a clear message (left) or were too text-heavy (right). Even after condensing the information and playing around with the colors and elements, nothing was really working.

As Leilani (the Art Director) and I discussed possible edits to the above drafts, I created a third option that is more visually engaging, but that ultimately ran into the same problems: did not look like a graphic design hiring flyer and was too busy.

At this point it was decided that the flyer should have more visuals. The text was condensed even further to include a new hook (“Are you creative?”), the job title, 3 open positions, a few bullet points about the job, and how to apply.

With this feedback, I modified the very first draft to lean more heavily into a graphic design/digital look.

My Final Thoughts: I’m not entirely happy with the final design. I think it’s a little static and the background is plain, BUT it does have more of a graphic design-vibe and a clearer hierarchy than the previous versions. Overall, I learned a lot about designing layouts and what to prioritize when creating a poster with a purpose. I think in the future I’ll spend more time in the thumbnail step so I have more stability when jumping into Illustrator.

Texas Politics Project – Internship Flyer and Digital Display Ads

Project Overview: Re-design/update the 2016 TxP Internship flyer to reflect the updated Texas Politics Project Website.

2016 Flyer / Draft 1 / Revision from client feedback / Revision from art director feedback:

Client Feedback on Draft 1: Preference for the banner look to the chevron look. Incorporate more clean lines to reflect the re-designed website. Replace header text.

Art Director Feedback: Change the fill of the icons and add a drop shadow to make them stand out.

Notes: This project has been a good exercise in layout design and incorporating feedback. I like the changes made from “Draft 1” to “Revision from art director feedback”. I think for the first draft I stuck too closely to the original flyer. The latest draft feels a bit more modern.

Final Product

Photoshop Training – Photo Sourcing and Color Grading

In-between the projects I’ve been working on so far this semester, I had time to do a quick training in Photoshop to enhance my understanding of color and blending modes in Photoshop.

Activity 1

For this first activity I was told to choose a scene from a movie that had an interesting color palette. I chose this screenshot from Into the Spiderverse:

Next, I used Image > Mode > Indexed Color to choose reduce the image down to its 8 most prominent colors. Then, Image > Mode > Color Table… > Save and Import Swatches to turn these colors into a usable color palette.

I then found a random stock photo (left) to apply the color scheme to (right). To do this, I added a gradient map to the image using the colors from above. I then played around with blending modes and opacity until the colors weren’t too overpowering.

Activity 2

For this next technique, you find a source image that you want to pull colors from to apply to another photo. I chose this as my color source image:

And this as the photo I wanted to edit / Then, using Image > Adjustment > Match color and playing around with color luminance, intensity, and fade, I was left with this:

Notes: Recently, I’ve been interested in how color and light works, so I figured this training would be insightful. I think it’s interesting how much color affects the mood of a picture. Applying the bright color scheme from the Spiderverse screenshot gave the stock portrait more intensity and volume. In the second exercise, the edited photo feels colder than the original. It looks like the first photo was taken in the spring and the second in the winter.