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Week 2 – Isa

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🫐 Week 2 🫐

This week I have been focused on doing some graphics for LAITS and building a consistent brand for them. I’ve been messing with the hierarchy of the admin office support flyer. One of the STA’s has been giving me feedback.

This is what I had before:

Feedback I got: Change the font to Roboto instead of Helvetica, incorporate more LAITS color

Using that, I came up with the following iterations. I did a version where I only changed the fonts, one where I tried to add some color, and the third is one I was honestly just messing around with how I could add more colors/reformat it.

Feedback: work on visual hierarchy and try to match it to the previous “ring the bell” flyer, they’re meant to look like part of a set

Using all of this, I came up with this latest version of the flyer:

🫐 Overall 🫐

It’s been really nice iterating on the posters I initially made a while back! Looking at them now I find new ideas coming to me a lot easier. I spent a little too long at them last semester, haha.

Knowledge Base Trainings

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Other than making some minor adjustments and edits, I finished everything I could do with the voting PSA animations this week. I’m now waiting to hear any edits or adjustments that may be needed before the official release of the PSA’s. In the meantime, I spent a lot of my time working on my trainings on Knowledge Base.

I first started with making pixel art in Illustrator since it was something new for me to try and seemed the most fun. I decided to make some artworks on my family’s pets since the tutorial used a dog as an example. I made 4 variations of each pet, each time experimenting with Illustrators generative color palettes. I had fun playing around with it and creating some unique color combinations.

Next I learned how to make an 8-bit animation in Photoshop. It’s a simple and quick way to make a small animated piece. I wanted to make something a bit unusual, so I cropped a mouth and animated it to look as if it were laughing.

The next training (and probably my favorite) was designing and animating a logo for myself. I wanted to go with my online username that I use for my art accounts, Kodicthyo. I also wanted to portray one of my characters that I created and have had for several years, Nyx. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I was struggling with the animation portion, however I’m glad I continued to push through the frustrations because I learned a lot of new things that I never would have learned had I not pushed myself.

Concept phase
Final

I’m out of time here, so I will have to show the rest of my projects next time I come in. Thank you for reading, as always.

Week 2

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Painting, Pixel Art, and Logo Animation

This week I worked on three different trainings. One was brush painting in Photoshop another was creating pixel art in Illustrator and the last was animating a logo in After Effects. I learned a lot of new things in all trainings and am looking forward to using these skills in the future!

Photoshop Painting

My task was to replicate a teapot design, then use a photo of my choice to create a new painting. I then animated it within the program to add a cuteness factor 🙂

Pixel Art

For this, I followed the pixel art tutorial on the KB. I chose a picture of my cat because I thought it would be challenging, but rewarding – and it was 😀

Logo Animation

For this task, it involved more planning and iterating. I started with a story board which I ended up altering after hearing from Lila. Then, I had to separate my layers in Illustrator from my original logo. After watching a ton of videos of techniques and styles, I began working in After Effects.

Attempt 1 – I was struggling finding transitions other than opacity changes
Final – After watching more tutorials, I was able to ad more effects and create the growing motif I was aiming for in the beginning

Reflection

Overall, I had a fun productive week learning new skills in PS, AI, and AE. Hopefully there will be opportunities for me to uses these skills in other areas of my work.

Welcome to the STA Blog!

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Hi Abdurrahmaan! 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

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 De’sha 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 into to 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 2026 – Spring 2027” 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!

Roster Poster

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Roster Poster Design

Task: Create a team poster for the design department at LAITS referencing the board game Pictionary

Status: In progress

Reference

The goal was to create a poster that visually resembled the board game box

Sketches

First, I started by sketching ideas out. I had a huge board of all the STA’s in different Pictionary-based poses

Feedback + Digitizing

Before creating the design in Illustrator, I got suggestions to create individual boards for each of the STA’s and have a place for their names. So, when I started illustrating, I explored this route and ended up keeping this suggestion

Further iterations

I still wanted to add smaller details to push the design forward and get the design as close to the reference as possible. I added small doodles, coloring to the each board, and other information in place of the players and company.

Final Design

Coming Soon

Reflection

Coming Soon

Summer 2026

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My Break

This summer I was able to go to Spain through a program called Absolute Internships. For 6 weeks, I studied at an self publishing editorial firm called Yerro Books. I worked on a few different projects including filming and editing a portfolio showcase, designing a book cover for a client, and researching methods to ethically work with AI in book cover designs. Communicating with my supervisor at times was challenging because of the language barrier, but through translator apps and visuals, we were able to stay on the same page. Something I learned outside of my workplace was how prominent design conventions and methods are used across the world. I thought there would be a greater difference in visual communication due to differences in culture, societal norms, politics, etc., but I noticed that graphic design in spain followed conventions used in the US.

Projects + Images

My supervisor Ester Carrasco
Thought Piece created for DES 260I
Book cover created for a client
Working with AI to generate book cover ideas