STA Blog

Princeton Tran

Princeton Tran

Week 3

By 

09/04 - 09/08

Custom Course Revisions and Trainings Continue

This week was a short one due to Labor Day giving us Monday off. Still, I managed to make headway on the custom course graphics training, which De’sha has been helping me with by providing helpful feedback. Gone is the old Wiener Werkstätte poster, and in is a new custom collage combining some seminal moments from art history in the twentieth century. The new direction is bold and bright. Take a look below.

 

A collage depicting various famous paintings from the twentieth century, including Warhol's soup cans, Picasso's Guernica, Cezanne's still lifes, and Dali's Persistence of Memory.
The original collage
A collage with dark overlay and text on top saying "Dr. Fabiola Martinez Rodriguez, Twentieth Century Art."
Canvas Graphic
A collage depicting various famous paintings from the twentieth century, including Warhol's soup cans, Picasso's Guernica, Cezanne's still lifes, and Dali's Persistence of Memory. A yellow overlay is applied to the entire image.
Yellow Graphic
A vertical poster with a collage overlayed with a yellow rectangular bar. Text atop the bar reads, "ART3800 Twentieth Century Art."
Vertical Monitor Graphic

In addition, I brushed up on the Elements and Principles of Design, and I’m currently working on an explanatory powerpoint which shows examples of each element and principle in fine art.

Ker Blam!

Week 2

By

My Second Blog Post!

With the second week behind me and some trainings under my belt, I am feeling more and more like a bonafide STA every day. This past week, I worked on some fun personal graphics including the banner you see above depicting my artistic license and a little self portrait that will be used in a poster assembling all the STAs. Apparently it looks more like my roommate than myself, but that’s okay. It’s the thought that counts.

A drawing of Princeton in an astronaut suit, holding a pen and pad.
I figured whoever designing the poster doesn’t need to put me on the ground if I made myself an astronaut. The sky’s not the limit!

After those projects, I moved on to training myself on creating Course graphics in three different styles. These were interesting to work on — I was able to learn some process and the unique quirks that came with it. I found some areas of potential improvement, which I hope to implement in order to streamline the training process and remove some friction. A sample of graphics I created for these trainings can be seen below.

 

An animated title card that says "20th Century Art" which cycles through various font styles.
Rough sketch of an animated title card that would play before each online lecture.

 

A menu showing custom designs for a fictional training course: "20th Century Art"
It was enjoyable to put together the graphics for a fictional art course.

 

A vertical poster showing three women -- abstracted into pure geometry -- and a banner in front of them with the course description on it: "ART3800, Twentieth Century Art".
The vertical monitor graphic for the studio setup.

 

The second week has helped me get into a groove of working and training. I look forward to completing my training and starting to work on impactful client work!

My First Blog Post

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Baby’s First Blog Post

My first week as a Design STA has been great! I found the experience somewhat similar to what I did over the summer, so I was able to get into a good groove in the first couple of days. Everyone I’ve met has been very welcoming and supportive. Big thanks to De’sha for helping me get up to speed and unlocking the door every time I have to go to the restroom!

So far, I’ve been busy working on administrative tasks, onboarding, orientation, and whatnot. I got some trainings done for UT, learned the ins and outs of some tools we use here, and created a presentation deck to review some things I learned from the STA Handbook. Now I’m hard at work to spruce up this blog with my first two tasks: Creating a banner and drawing my self portrait. I started on both today and I’m looking forward to continuing that next week. Since I get up so early, I don’t see too much of the other STAs, so I’m also excited for our first weekly meeting, where I can meet everyone and see what they’ve all been up to!

Overall, LAITS seems like a great work environment and I’m happy I joined the team. Stay tuned for more updates as I grow and evolve throughout my time here.

Welcome to the STA Blog

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Hi Princeton! 🙂 Welcome to the STA Blog! This the page where your blog posts will published.

Toward the end of your STA Orientation, you’ll design and upload a banner to go at the top of this page.

Upload a Blog Banner

Step One: Design Your Banner in Photoshop

Use these Photoshop specs when you’re making your banner:

    • Your banner should be 780 pixels wide (the height doesn’t matter)
    • Must include your name, your major, and your expected graduation year
    • Your banner should reflect who you are (your personality, interests or major)
    • Make sure to save your banner for the web (i.e. File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy))
    • If you save your banner as a JPG, make sure sure the quality is high (i.e. at least 60)

Step Two: Save Your Banner

  • There are two places you can save your completed projects: UT Box and the LAITS server. You’ll be given a personal folder in both locations. For now, you only have to save your banner to UT Box, but you may have to access the server at some point in the future.

Accessing UT Box

Accessing the LAITS server

    • Accessing the LAITS server from off-campus is slightly more complicated.
    • You’ll need to be registered with Duo if you aren’t already (you can register here).
    • Then you’ll need to connect to the UT VPN and the LAITS server. The videos below will walk you through how to do that:
    •  Then navigate to your STA volume folder and save
      • smb://file.laits.utexas.edu/sta/Princeton Tran
    • Save your banner both as an image and an unmerged PSD

Step Three: Upload Your Banner to the STA Blog

  • Log in the the STA Blog here. You should’ve received an email confirming your new WordPress account with your username and assigned password. If didn’t get it or you can’t log in, ask Suloni or another STA.
  • You’ll be able to change your password anytime by going to Users > Your Profile > Account Management > New Password.

Uploading media and banners in WP

  • Read these links before you upload your banner.
  • They will walk you through how to upload media to your blog.

How to Upload a Homepage Banner

Adding New Posts and Media

Make Your First Blog post

  • Reflect on the day. You blog posts will be a documented experience of your time as an STA with LAITS. They can include anything you want to share about the projects you’re working on, and the more media (screenshots, images, links, videos, gifs) you can use, the better.
  • For today, write a bit about about yourself and what you did during orientation.
  • If you haven’t already, upload your banner.

Things to Remember

Image Specs

  • You should never copy and paste images intoto your blog. Always upload images into the media section of blog first (Click on the add media button), then insert the image from the media folder to display on your blog.
  • Don’t use the thumbnail version of your images.
  • Use images that are 72 dpi
  • Screenshots are fine
  • Images that are 780 pix wide format nicely above or below text blocks

Always Categorize Your Posts

  • Always check the category “Fall 2023 – Spring 2024” on the blog posts you make this summer. This is the only category you need to check.
  • Make sure your posts are categorized correctly so that all of your work is documented in the correct semesters.

Commenting on Basecamp

Notification comments: etiquette, files, questions, feedback

Let us know when you’ve completed this task by adding a link to your blog to a comment in Basecamp.
Notes for all comments in Basecamp:
  • *Always address the person/people you are writing to by their names.
  • *Always use complete sentences.
  • *Always add links or paths to your design file in your STA folder.
  • *Make it easier for your collaborators and mentors to give you feedback on a design by adding screenshots to your comment.

 

Notify people in Basecamp by adding the @ symbol before their names (no spaces), otherwise they may not see your comment.

@ your STA mentor in your comments when you want to:

  • ask us questions about the mechanics of using the STA blog,
  • about the mechanics of photoshop,
  • to let us know that you have completed this task,
  • or that you would like a little feedback on on your banner design 🙂

Thank you & have fun!