STA Blog

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:

Basic Trainings

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AI Logo Basic Training

I enjoyed this training very much because I got to play around with designing a logo based on my initials. It was really nice to see how many variations and concepts come up with only two letters. Here’s a couple of iterations I made while looking into my logo:

I ended up choosing the fourth design, which is symmetrical and forms an ambigram. Here are are some variations in color based on this logo:

I ended up choosing the duo-toned blue logo since it emphasizes the duality of the orientation of the logo. Here are some mockups of different merch items the logo could be on:

Finally, here’s a version of my logo including my full name:

 

Color Wheel Basic Training

I really enjoyed learning a bit about color theory and the additive/subtractive aspects of color. Here are some progress snapshots of the design I went with for my color wheel:

Course Graphics Basic Training

I just started this training. So far, I’ve come up with a few different mood boards for the style of the course: Earth’s Dynamic Environment II.

These are the three mood boards I’ve come up with:

Moodboard 1:

  • Earthy tones with satellite images of landscapes
  • Font: Noto Serif

Moodboard 2:

  • Cool tones with images of different stages of water
  • Font: Rubik

Moodboard 3:

  • Green tones with images of green mountainscapes
  • Font: Alegreya

And here are some digital backdrops I’ve come up with based on these mood boards and feedback from Maddy:

PSY420M: Studio Course Graphics

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PSY420M: Studio Course Graphics

For this project I had to make the course graphics for course called PSY 420M – Psychological Methods and Statistics. The requests for this project were as follows:

 

It seemed fairly simple at first, but the process of taking care of these was really extensive. For instance, the client requested that I took care of these requests in two different colors (as you can see in the image above). The reason for this was because we were concerned that the image they requested for the graphics was going to clash with their original color of choice (the #f8971f).

 

With this in mind, I was now tasked to figure out the optimal look of the requested image for the graphics. So I tried many different versions of presenting this image. I tried displaying it in full color. I tried with a sepia tones (specifically with the orange palette in mind). Then I tried a more faded look. Finally I tried a combination of faded and gray-scaled that seemed to do the trick. Additionally, I made other suggestions for the wall monitor. The client seemed to prefer the orange palette more, but the wall monitor image they had chosen was a bit too dark for that purpose. Therefore I suggested two other images that might fit better with the orange palette and placed them on the iPad overlay as a visual reference.

 

This is what the state of the project looks like as of right now:

 

 

This project is still subject to change, though. But if anything changes I will add an update post, no worries.