STA Training: Logo Design

Start: Sep 27th, 2023

To be Completed: N/A

Description: This is a three-part training in branding and the first step is the creation of a logo to represent myself.

When I looked back to my portfolio site, I realized that most of my personal work in done in black and off-white with thin like and heavy text. Therefore, I’d like to make a monogram logo in a minimalism style. Here are some sketches with the combination of my initial: J & W. I realized that they can combine with each other by overlaying J and the left part of W.

Version 1 in illustrator

My logo meant to be abstract to showcase the aesthetics of my design work. However, I’m not sure if I want to go with an elegant and thin style or the strong stroke. The strong strike is bad in readability but create interesting negative space for me to input more design inside. That’s how I come up with my new versions.

Version 2 in illustrator

While De’sha pointed out that it’s hard to read J&W with the shape, I realized that I could emphasize my name inside the strokes. It’s especially useful when I put it in the business card or personal website.

Next Step

When I looked at more examples in self-branding, I saw a couple of designers use a branding kit to represent themselves instead of a single logo to deal with different scenario. I think this logo would be a good supplement on this kits rather than itself to represent “the whole me”. For next steps, I would work on another form of logotype following the similar aesthetics of this logotype.

TXDST Website Photo Editing

Start: Sep 29th, 2023

To be Completed: Nov 9th, 2023

Client: Rachel

Staff Guidance: De’sha

Project Description: graphic design/editing help for images that will be used in the Brazoria County section of the website

I edited most of them by adding the yellow blurred highlight on the top of intended pieces.

However, there are one pieces I found difficulty of dealing it.

2. Trace the letter by myself (I have traced the first line for comparison)

I’m still waiting for the feedback of these two versions and hopefully our client would love one of them.

New Update

The client do like the tracing option so I trace the letter one by one with the Wacom tablet. It’s a little bit time-consuming overall but now I know more about the type structure!

Update on Nov.6th

I received more photo editing request from our client Signe. I was able to edit 20 more photos on adjusting and highlighting certain parts of the photos (census records and maps) to help readers of the website locate on important information easier. 

More Animation Training and UTFC

Animation Training

More animation training! This week was motion design focused which I mainly had fun with because it made me use more after effects features and puppet animati0n.

The first assignment was to fix a “broken” file which was mainly just using masking and reordering the assets. I think the biggest challenge was waiting for it to render since it’s over a minute long. It’s also a rather slow paced video, but nonetheless, I had fun figuring out how to fix it!

Broken File Link

Next up was animating a banner and animating Illustrator assets! This was actually really interesting as I used the puppet pin tool to essentially create limbs and mesh for the banner. I think one of the main things I learned is that it’s really easy to lose track of the proportions of an asset when using the puppet tool so I had to be very cautious the animation didn’t look too unnatural.

Animated Banner Link

I had a lot of fun with this one since I got to work with premade assets with an already established style. I’m used to just working with my own art so I look forward to projects like this.

UTFC

I’ve actually heard about the UTFC assignment before and that’s it’s mainly finding photos for the textbook. It’s a rather straightforward and meditative assignment. Some of the words can be really similar so working around that or figuring out the main thing that differentiates the words. However, I look forward to the feedback I can get so I can see what I can look for in the future.

Fall ’23 STA Roster Poster

Project: Fall 2023 STA Roster Poster
Client: LAITS
Completion Status: *Final touches*
Staff guidance: De’sha
STA team members: Leilani
Description/plans: We will be finalizing the design/composition to be reviewed by Mike. The QR code placement and design are yet to be finalized but we want it to blend in with the poster, as well as display some significance to passersby who will want to scan it.

9/25 Group Meeting – MOODBOARD

Activity: De’sha gave us 15 minutes to create and upload a mood board of goals/ambitions. My initial mood board was very rushed but for good reason– because De’sha didn’t want us to dwell on the small details, so we could focus on the bigger picture. I went back in and made it look better because De’sha said she’d be printing these out… I expanded a bit more on my goals because my first one mostly consisted of pictures– which didn’t help me remember the explicit goals I was trying to display with them. With the bullet points, it’s much easier for me to stay aware of the goals I’ve set, and what I need to do to accomplish them.

Although I like our check-in meetings, it was also fun to participate in an activity with other STA’s. This activity was also beneficial for all of us to see where we are in our design journey