STA Blog

Current Sta

(1/13 – 1/17)

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IPE PPT QA

Project: Banner Design & WP content uploading for Prof. Xs, Instructional African Languages website
Client /Prof: Dell – Aguirre & Kwak
Staff guidance: De’sha
STA team members: Kate, Kyra, Lila, Shanda, Shriya
Description/plans: 9 PPT Modules to be reviewed and reformatted–make slides visually cohesive and match existing style guidelines (provided by De’sha in a standardized PPT example)

Nursing Module 2: recreate an animated graphic based on the client’s mockup. Also correct font sizes, spacing, etc.

Client Mockup

Recreated Graphic

Slide Animation

Summer Marketing

  • Spring 2025 Postcard:
    • New design with the Spring 2024 Postcard graduate image
    • New design with a new graduate image
    • New design with a new traveling image

December Projects ❆

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December Projects ❆

Studio Course Graphics

This training walked me through the process of designing and curating my own graphics for a studio setting!

My vision…

⇢ Utilize the Museum that the students get to visit during the class

⇢ Incorporate the art style that is being studied in the class

⇢ Make the graphic monochromic

It took a few iterations to get to this point, but that’s part of the process! Originally I was pretty lost when creating this piece because I felt like every version looked really busy, especially for a backdrop. I then decided to tone it down and make the design a little more simpler!

My Steps ˚⋆｡˚

✧ Make the base layer a dark blue color

✧ Found a high-quality photo of the museum interior and desaturated it

✧ Played around with the blending modes for visual interest

✧ For more depth, I decided to duplicate the museum layer, change the blending mode & opacity, and finally offset the layer from the original

Health and Society 301 Course Graphics

Summer Courses Instagram PFP

Final Version:

Notes

  • Had to Incorporate UT branding and “Summer Online”

  • Debated whether or not UT crest should be included

  • Tested out different color variations for a “summer feel”

Drafts:

December Updates

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DECEMBER 2024

At the beginning of December, I was tasked with creating a logo for UT.AI marketing. I was a little surprised when I was assigned this since I never made a logo before and only recently began training for it in my downtime. However, with the consistent feedback from De’sha and Leilani, I know what to expect in the future if I’m assigned a logo design again!

Regarding the actual creation of the logo, it took many back and forths to find the direction for the logo. Here are my sketches:

The direction of these two sketches was going in the right place and I got approval to iterate them further:

Color Iterations:

Vectorized:

The second logo was favored the most. I was asked to do one last adjustment before it was sent to Mike:

Before going on winter break, I was assigned to work on some illustrations and icons for the IPE project! These icons and illustrations would be used in animations created by Lila.

I was on a bit of a time crunch since I only had 6 days of work before I was out for winter break. I began with making sketches for the icons. Here are the sketches I was able to do:

After creating these sketches, I was to focus on creating characters, environments, and scenes for Lila to animate.


Here is the final character lineup:

These are the final environments I made:

The last thing I did was get started on a couple of scenes that would be animated. These are the ones I managed to complete before my last shift ended for the semester:

When I went on break, De’sha finished up my end! I was happy to be assigned this project because it allowed me to see how I’ve grown in Illustrator. Overall, I look forward to getting projects like this one again in the future, but hopefully we won’t be on as much of a time crunch as this one!

December

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PSY339: Behavior Problems of Children

Project: Course Graphics
Client /Prof: Dr. Sara Villanueva
Description/Plans: Updating/creating new course graphics and imagery for PSY339 Spring 2025

Pre-roll Animation

PPT Content Slides

TA Monitor

Summer Marketing

Tuition Guide

Added estimated semesters offered

Minors Guide

Updated classes and spacing

PSY 339 Course Graphics

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PSY 339 Course Graphics

My first assignment was to work on making course graphics for PSY 339: Behavior Problems of Children. The professor wanted Style B graphics and had already chosen an image to be used.

For this assignment, I created:

Canvas dashboard/homepage graphics

Canvas buttons

Powerpoint resources

Animated stingers

An end card

Canvas Assets

These were my initial designs for the Canvas assets. I had some trouble positioning the girl so that she wasn’t covered up by anything, and couldn’t find the department logo initially.

After this, I received feedback to:

  • Use the department branding
  • Use a color overlay on the logo
  • Change the color bar to more of a gray color instead of a slightly blue color
  • Put “of” on the second row with “children”
  • Push the picture of the girl up a little

Incorporating Feedback

After receiving feedback, I changed the logo, color bar, text, and played with the photo. I tried to make sure that the girl was more visible and more fully in the frame.

Canvas Buttons

After this, I created my Canvas buttons. I wasn’t sure what color to make the bottom bar, so I just made them a different gray because it didn’t clash with the main gray.

After this, I received feedback to:

  • Make the main color a gold/yellow so it matches the image
  • Make the bottom bar the gray color

Incorporating Feedback

I used the eyedropper tool to pick a gold/yellow color from the photo, and my buttons ended up looking like this:

Powerpoint Assets

Next, I created my Powerpoint assets. The professor specified that she wanted them to be in Style B Color Overlay. Creating these slides involved using Adobe Illustrator to make the backgrounds and then importing them into Powerpoint.

After this, I received feedback to:

  • Change the slide to the faded color instead so that the image doesn’t have the gray overlay

Incorporating Feedback

After changing the background accordingly, the slides looked like this:

Stinger Animations

Lastly, I created stinger animations and the end card. The professor had some that she had previously used, but she wanted to change the background color to match. I made these in Adobe After Effects.

After this, I received feedback to:

  • Change the background color to the same gold/yellow color that buttons use
  • Add the Department of Psychology branding onto the end card

Incorporating Feedback

I then changed the background to the gold button color and revised the end card. Since I’m not as familiar with After Effects, it took me a little while to figure out how to add the new logo and animate it. However, after playing around (and a bit of Google), I learned how to use keyframes and opacity to make the logo fade in and out.

I then got final feedback to:

  • Add the utexas logo back in at the end of the end card

Incorporating Feedback

Here is the updated end card with the added logo:

Pre-Roll Animation

Lastly, I had to fix the pre-roll animation logo. Originally, it was the logo for the Department of Government, and it should have been the logo for the Department of Psychology. This wasn’t necessarily a difficult task, but I’m not as adept with Adobe After Effects, so it was a fun challenge for me to see if I could figure out the layers and elements needed.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I thought this assignment was interesting and a good way to practice the skills and guidelines I learned in my previous course graphics trainings. The most challenging part for me was the end card because I’m not as familiar with Adobe After Effects. I had a little trouble figuring out how to get the logos to fade in from black and color, and just how to animate in general. I held off on asking for help, just to see if I could teach myself—and I was able to use online resources, as well as a little trial and error to learn what I needed to do. Aside from After Effects, I thought I was a fun exercise in layout and color.