STA Blog

Fall 2025

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Summer 2025

Summer Marketing

Fall Digital Display

v.1

v.2

v.3

  • Identical to last years
  • Scene is Book’em on UT Campus…
  • Went for a full park scene. (campus imagery isn’t the best for summer promotions)
  • Flag poles and road referencing speedway
  • Changed placement of text
  • URL has separate designated place

11 x 17 Posters (WIP)

Continuing the campaign, my next was to redesign the 11×17 posters that will be posted around campus. This visual has gone through a lot of iterations, changing imagery, color, text, and many visual components.

v.1

v.2

v.105,784

FINAL POSTERS

Changes

  • Hard stop gradient background
  • Cleaned up photo: removed cup, background objects, and flyawayss

Overall I’m very happy with the poster! It was a struggle knowing what elements needed to be on the poster and in what order. I think this project really helped with my hierarchy skills and just developing as an intentional designer.

Fall A-Frames

Changes

  • Removed tagline bar at the top
  • Fixed spacing of words
  • Added “Future you will thank you!” to the computer screen. Adjusted the photo so the phrase is the focus.

Spring Digital Display

v.1

For this project the objective was to mimic the visual elements of the 11×17 poster, but oriented for a TV screen.

Components

  • Photo
  • Visual motif that shows movement
  • Tag line and URL

v.2

v.3

Finalish

  • Solidified 11×17 visuals
  • Thinner lines
  • Different photo options
  • Lighter background gradient

TGDP Posters

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Donor Dialects and Language Variation (TGDP) – Banner #18

I’ve been continuing to create posters for the UT Department of Germanic Studies, and the most recent one I’ve worked on is Banner #18, which covers the topic of Donor Dialects and Language Variation.

➜ Draft 1

  • When I initially created this draft, there was too much content to fit everything into a single column on the poster space allotted, so I decided to split up the content into two columns (reading left to right)

  • The main feedback I received was to re-organize the three headers so that each section reads left to right and is separated by a horizontal line. This structure is easier for a reader’s eyes to follow, and makes logical sense.

➜ Draft 2

  • This draft was created by reorganizing the three main sections according to the feedback above.

  • I also adjusted the colors of the dotted map to be more accessible, as the previous colors used had low contrast and may have been difficult to view for people who are color-blind. The updated colors are much more saturated and distinct.

  • This poster is now up to the most current version, and I am awaiting feedback.

➜ Project Status: In Progress

Selected Features of Texas German Morphosyntax Banner (TGDP) – Banner #17

The past few weeks, I’ve been iterating on layouts of the Texas German Morphosyntax Banner (Banner #17) for the UT Department of Germanic Studies. This involves translating written text to a visually appealing poster using Adobe Indesign. I’ve been tweaking the layout of the text blocks and images based on I’ve gotten from my project admin. My fellow STA Kate has also been guiding me throughout the process, so shoutout to her!

➜ Text Clarity/Organization: An important piece of feedback I received was to align the “word-for-word” translations evenly, so that it’s intuitive for a reader to understand which words belong together. To fix this, I made the “word-for-word” spacings more standardized using a transparent table, with a word or number in each cell block. On the images below, the left image is before I added the tables, and the right table is after.

Before I added transparent tables

After I added transparent tables

➜ Draft 1: After two rounds of feedback, I rearranged several headers and adjusted text content:

➜ Draft 2: I ended up condensing the poster to make it much shorter, as I had accidentally elongated the original version. After rearranging some text, here is the most current draft:

➜ Project Status: In Progress

➜ Reflection: I’ve been enjoying my first project working with an actual client, and I’ve learned a lot about designing with a specific audience in mind (in this case, individuals wanting a clear way to learn about Texas German Morphosyntax). I’m also enjoying expanding my skills within InDesign.

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October Projects: COERLL and Spring 2026 Roster Poster

These past few weeks with the help of Shanda I worked on a book cover for COERLL, which involved making a text logo and map graphic. using mainly Illustrator for this project, I was able to figure out many more small and useful tips for my workflow, especially when it comes to working with vectors and customizing fonts.

-COERLL Book Cover-

-Spring 2026 Roster Poster-

At the same time, I have been working on the Spring 2026 Roster Poster, and have been experimenting with various styles for a main title graphic:

So far, I have chose to continue with concept #1, but I will also try and see how concept #2 could work out. This is also my first time using a Wacom tablet, so I am slowly learning many new things that you can do in photoshop which I hadn’t known previously. Furthermore, this project has also forced me to get back into my illustrative mindset, which I haven’t tapped into in years. (I stopped drawing in like middle school or earlier)

https://sta.laits.utexas.edu/blog/2025/10/16/blog-review-oct-17/

October 2025

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October 2025

MSAI: AI Applications for Astrophysics Course Graphics

Project Details

This course is about how AI applications can be used to generate astro-physics data, with students who are not expected to have a background in astronomy. Typically, classes work with pre-curated data, so this class aims to teach students to compile data themselves using AI algorithms. The professors want to keep the focus for the course graphics on astronomy, however, and have emphasized that they would ideally like the typical nodes and lines to be replaced with icons of stars, planets, and galaxies, similar to the things that you can get in Mac Keynote’s shapes. In terms of animation, perhaps some sort of cosmic explosion would work well too.

Thumbnails

Mock-ups of Design 4

Revised Design

Animated Intro

Training: Photo Scanning / Color Correction

The ChiLDS Lab

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The ChiLDS Lab Site Redesign

Client: Maria Arredondo, The ChiLDS Lab

Task: Complete a site redesign for The ChiLDS Lab. The client wanted to keep most of the content, but wanted a refreshed and “cuter” design overall.

Status: In progress, low fidelity mock-ups created

The Old Site

What we’re working with.

Logo Redesign

An updated look.

A moodboard

Initial designs

Abstract Banner

For separating content.

Possible Site Mock-Ups

Several options of implementations of the above assets.

Client Feedback

Receiving edits and revising.

The client ended up choosing the “lego block” logo design, with some minor edits. After revising to meet her requests, the logo ended up looking like this:

Low-Fidelity Mock-Ups

A more complete plan for the layouts.