STA Blog

Lecture Title Slide and Other Things

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Lecture Title Slide and Other Things

Hello! This past week, I worked on a few things like the Lecture Title Slide, additional buttons for HS 301, and the copyright free image guide on Cascade. The following are the additional style B buttons created for HS 301. 

The Lecture Title Slide was a continuation of Bridget’s efforts from last summer. She created the style and theme, which involved a color scheme of mostly blue, neon yellow, and black hues for the stinger style slides. Using her files, I tried to understand how she created her designs (which were a mix of effects, masks, and stamps) and further clarified things with Maddy and Poonum. After mixing some more strokes, textures, and hue type effects, I created the cloud version below for the Close Reading Close-Up. The following copies are other textures I experimented with.

 

I also spent some time working on a Figma tutorial last week, for the UI/UX. I used some bold typography to make the page look more “high-end,” as the client brief specified, but I forgot about the color scheme in the brief. When I have some more time, I will make the edits regarding things like the amount of white space, alignment, grids, and color that Maddy pointed out in feedback.

I also helped with some photo IDs and recorded a few clips of myself for the orientation pre-roll. The photo IDs were pretty standard, except one was a little poorly lit and lower in quality, so I messed around with brightness levels and warmth to improve the balance of color. I haven’t made a post in a while, but those were most of the highlights! I also graduated!

Update 5.28.2021

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Quantum Computing Graphics

I’ve been looking into ways of graphically expressing the concepts that a Quantum Computing course could teach by trying out different concepts, ranging from the configuration of Qubits to the actual look of a quantum computer made by IBM. Here are some of the options I’ve explored:

COLA Public Affairs

This project involved creating assets that were the same style as the Study Tips animated video I created with Poonum, Angie and Athena over the winter break. Mostly using the laptop assets PSD file, I created an interface that would look like a “COLA Travel Agency” in which a cursor clicks different flags to open different language sites. This is a short, fast-paced project but it has been really fun to make:

One more Photo ID

Weekly update

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Weekly update

Before we go to commercial, here’s what I’ve been up to this week.

 

Since Texas Politics wrapped up and I got done with a lot of my KB writing and my Figma training, it’s been pretty ~chill~. I put my typography activity KB article (like InDesign Part II, but only using type) on the KB site and did about six or seven photo IDs. I also edited a few KB articles for writing and grammar — really just deleting bloated phrasing. And last but not least, I helped Miguel and Cristina pick out photos for TX Global from their gigantic folder (not kidding) and began reformatting a PPT for TXG.

 

In other news, spring break was much-needed after I did three times as many issues than usual for The Daily Texan (you can check out the special coverage here and here). I crocheted myself an ear-warmer for the fall and am currently working on a beanie for a friend of mine (I don’t have the hair for hats). I’ve also had this song on loop during my entire shift today (thanks, Spotify discover weekly).

Iconography KB Research

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Iconography

What makes an effective icon that is both appealing and readable for the brand it is supposed to represent. This was my task that I have been working on for the past couple of weeks. How to create an effective icon.

I began with some research on the foundations of iconography. Icons are supposed to be compact, simplified symbol that represents an object, action or idea. They should be able to be read at first glance. This is important because icons are everywhere and are used for navigation, warning signs, they trigger actions, and the show status for many things. People need icons to be readable beyond language barrier.

 

This leads to the most important principles of icon design, clarity, readability, alignment, brevity, consistency, and personality.

Texas Global and more

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Texas Global PPT

I was tasked to redesign a slideshow for a Texas Global lecture in which we were provided a new design template to follow on PowerPoint, here are some of the slides for comparison:

 

Lesson 1: Design History

I also worked with Poonum and Abriella on making standardized assets for imagery in this lesson. I came up with a PSD template that adds a dark overlay in the background while repeating the same image being used for each instance in order to add depth to the negative space. Here’s how they look:

Lesson 3: Typography

Finally, I think I am basically done with my section on Bezier Curves. Here are some snapshots of the progression of a letter transformed from text into a path and then edited through Bezier Curves: