FEBRUARY 2025

— 2025 STA PRESENTATION ROSTER POSTER(S) —

I was still working on the STA Presentation Roster Poster(s) going into February. The due date for the project was the 28th. I was grateful that I got the overall foundation of the posters done so all that was left was making edits to lighting, text, and props to decorate the scene.

Regarding the props, I went back to Illustrator to create some popcorn buckets and a drink.

Here is the first iteration of the posters with the props:

— IPE PROJECT —

I was back to working on some IPE assignments this month! Lila updated me on some scenes that were required and I went ahead and worked on them:

I also worked on additional icons needed for the animations. I created a calendar, phone, and pill bottle:

Overall, I like being able to revisit this project! It’s fun making scenes or illustrations and I love being tested on what I’ve learned in Illustrator up until now.

— 2025 LAITS T-SHIRT MOCKUPS —

My last project for February was creating high-fidelity mockups for this year’s shirt. I was provided 6 sketches from the project team and would use those as a reference.

The first shirt was based on the classic disposable cup design. This design was simple to recreate and helped me discover the select-color range tool in Photoshop!

The second shirt is inspired by the classic “thank you” bag. This one was also easy to recreate and I discovered another feature in Photoshop! I learned there was an outline option for text and used that for the “LAITS” red outlines.

The third was another callback to a classic design with this one being inspired by the iconic NYC coffee cup design. This design was a bit more difficult to recreate since I couldn’t easily do it in Photoshop. I took the design into Illustrator and recreated the design there since I could manipulate the assets without losing quality.

The fourth was the most difficult for me to recreate! This one was inspired by the Nintendo DS version of Pictochat. It took a while for me to recreate the design in Illustrator and having to restrict it to two colors was an additional challenge. Despite that, this one turned out to be my personal favorite!

For the fifth design, I was tasked with simplifying the poster design for the shirt. I struggled the most in balancing the elements of the design and having the catchphrases on the shirt make sense without including all of the original ones. I ended up with two mockups for this design: One that is the simplest and another that has more of the elements from the original poster. Looking at these, I personally feel there is still a bit of balancing issues, but I still like them! (The slack turtle is adorable)

The sixth design I took into procreate to draw. This design was also difficult because of the 2 color limit; however, Leilani’s suggestion of changing my lineart to gray helped the design standout on the black shirt.

MARCH 2025

— TYPE HIERARCHY IN INDESIGN —

In my downtime, I explored training in software that I didn’t have much experience in. Before doing this training, I only used InDesign once to create a more creative resume. It gave me a lot of trouble, so I used this opportunity to get more comfortable with this app.

For this training, I was to make a typography-only poster for a fake event. I’ll admit I had trouble balancing the elements of the poster and adjusted the type multiple times. I thought about decorating the poster with assets I would create in Illustrator, but I wanted to see what I could do with just InDesign.

Here is the result:

— PHOTOSHOP TRAINING —

This was a quick Photoshop training I did where I made flashcards:

Flowers (Khmer):

Created by Grafix Point from Noun Project

Created by Kristina Margaryan from Noun Project

Created by Made from Noun Project

Mushrooms (Malay):

Created by Rike from Noun Project

Created by DioRama from Noun Project

Created by Lars Melertoberens from Noun Project

Grass (Lao):

Created by arie from Noun Project

Created by Tere II from Noun Project

Created by Adrien Coquet from Noun Project

Trees (Thai):

Created by Gabriella from Noun Project

Created by rasendria from Noun Project

Created by ProSymbols from Noun Project

Bushes (French):

Created by madness stock from Noun Project

Created by Agung Pamuji from Noun Project

Created by wahab marhaban from Noun Project

— STA PRESENTATION WALK-IN ANIMATION —

Animation Proposal

Asset Creation

Working on the Animation

Problem 🙁

Unfortunately, I got news that someone else did a walk-in animation. I had to stop working on the project.

— 2025 LAITS SHIRT CONTINUED —

Final Design Picked!

The turtle design was picked! Now it was time to rearrange the assets and explore different color options.

Shirt Mock Ups

A note I got is to explore the idea of a pink or brown shirt– so I would experiment with different color palettes for those. I would also try out different shirt colors that I think would suit the shirt.

˚✿˖° February Projects ⋆˚✿˖°

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PETEX Pipeline Technology-Maintenance Course Phase II

This month I was assigned to recreate a graphic into a clearer image! It was fun working more with gradients in Photoshop to provide more depth to the graphic and I adjusted some text for better readability!

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2025 STA Presentation

Initial Thoughts: This project I was assigned to create the slide template for the 2025 STA Presentation!! While the idea was a bit daunting at first, I was really excited to create a slide template of my own!

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Initial Sketch: So at first I thought the slide template was based on the Peanuts franchise combined movie elements (LOL) which turned out to not be the case! Although this slide template wasn’t on the right path, I still wanted to use some elements like the curtain and section header slides!

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2nd Design: I leaned away from the Peanuts characters and focused more on movie elements by rendering my past illustrations! I tried to include a variety of movie symbols like film cameras and film strips! While I do think the different elements were nice, with the given feedback, I realized for a slide template meant to display the work of STA’s, I needed to be more subtle with my design and let the presentation speak for itself rather than the background! I also made a note to make my designs more vector based to stay in the same style as my other STAs!

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3rd Design: This time I focused more on creating the title and content slide! I went back to the initial slide idea with seats and zoomed in more so the screen could be the focus! The hardest part was making the gradients work with the seats and where to place the bandings! I did like adding the special effects like the outer glow to the screens, it really did make the design pop!

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3rd Design PT.2: Next I tried marking where the STAs would structure their title slide! To be honest, I was really stuck on how to make this work because none of my placements really looked right to me! However, with some feedback from De’sha I was able to reformat and add new edits to the title slide!

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Final Design: Added some edits to the title and content slides by adding a yellow tint and making the chairs more realistic! I explored different fonts for the mock title slide and put the title image as the background! Overall, this project was definitely a journey, but it lead me to learn even more about Photoshop, how to effectively create slide templates, and incorporate feedback to make the best design possible!

Summer Marketing Social Media

• Instagram Reel (2/25): Top 3 Reasons to Take UT Summer Courses
  • Animated elements and transitions in AE based on sketches De’sha provided.

• Instagram Post (3/4): Announcing the UT Summer Course Schedule is Live!
  • Populated PS post-it mockup with various Summer Marketing-related elements and text. Final text edits applied by Leilani.

Updated Animated Pre-roll:

Speedway Banner Finalization:

Real Banner Example:

Final Design:

Mockups:

Summer Marketing

Spring Texas Parent Ads

Description: Texas Parents newsletter graphic

Inspiration:

Drafts:

Spring 2025 STA Roster Posters

Project Overview: Design 2 posters that display the STAs, their names, the main title, and that differentiate between the teams. The design will be based on “Movie Concession Stands”. The idea is to have the STAs represented as candy boxes/bags of candy.

I started by sketching out some layouts and finding inspiration photos. My initial vision was to have the teams represented by different bars/bags/boxes of candy.

This is the first draft I created in Photoshop following the original design. It was at this point in the project that we decided to pivot on the design to something more illustrative to simplify the layout, fill the empty space, and save time.

I moved to Illustrator to try a new layout, created with the help of my manager De’sha. In this version, each STA would be on their own mini candy box. This way everyone is equally represented and can blend into the packaging more seamlessly.

I designed some simple candy box designs with placeholders for the photos and names, then got to adding all 75 STAs to the document.

With all the STAs in their candy boxes, I could focus on the border and title design. I was directed to make it look more like the display case from my original inspiration pictures. I also added a key beneath the title identifying each of the teams.

I received some more feedback to shorten the title, turn the boxes on their sides, lighten the background, and add some elements to fill the empty space on the bottom shelf.

In another round of feedback I added some effects to the title, removed the border completely, darkened the color of the shelves, and simplified the popcorn to match the stylistic design of the rest of the poster.

In a final round of edits to make the design look more like a concession stand, I added a 3D perspective to the boxes, changed the title font and changed the key design.

My Thoughts: This project was a little bit of a rollercoaster, but I definitely learned a lot. In hindsight, I think I should have pivoted to Illustrator sooner as I spent a lot of time on a draft that ended up being scrapped in the end. Additionally, asking for more help and feedback in the early stages of the project would have saved time and energy fixing things later on.

Overall, I think the posters turned out fun, playful, and very colorful.

2024-25 STA Blog Banner Design

Project Overview: Design a banner that presents all of the STAs and their names to act as the Design/Coding STA Blog header.

This is the background design I created inspired by the UT turtle pond. I drew this in Krita, then transferred it to Illustrator, vectorized it using image trace, and added text.

By the time I went to add the STAs to the image, some new members had joined our team, so I did some rearranging and duplicating of lilypads to fit everyone. Here’s the final product!