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Custom/Studio Course Graphics Training

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Custom/Studio Course Graphics Training

Continuing with course graphics training, I completed a training for designing custom course and studio assets. I chose the course ARTH 3800: Twentieth Century Art to create course graphics for.

I created:

In-studio and video assets

Canvas assets

Powerpoint slides

Stinger animations

Moodboards/Inspiration

Here are some ideas I had at the start for directions I could go for the designs.

In-Studio Assets

Once I got my moodboards approved, I moved on to the studio assets. I tried to take inspiration from both my second and third moodboard (art through the years while implementing the bold, line driven style of modernism). I decided to give it a red overlap just to keep the entire graphic consistent, as there is a lot going on. Still, I was unsure of whether red was an appropriate color and whether or not it was still too busy.

First Drafts

Studio Mockups

After this, I received feedback to:

  • Make sure the professor is the main focus
  • Blur and mute the backdrop a little

Incorporating Feedback

Taking in account the feedback I was given, I applied a gaussian blur to the pictures in my backdrop and lowered the brightness in Photoshop.

Revised Studio Assets

Revised Studio Mockups

Storyboarding

After finalizing my studio graphics, I created a storyboard for the intro animation. I decided to give it the same layout as the wall monitor background and have the panels slide in from the top, bottom, and sides. After this, the background will fade out while the title of the course will fade in.

Canvas Graphics

After finalizing my studio graphics and storyboard, I moved on to creating Canvas graphics. I decided to reimplement the non-blurred version of the graphic because there is no longer a need to have a focus on the professor, and I felt that the clear version was less distracting for the Canvas graphics than it was for the the studio graphics.

Here were the first drafts of my Canvas graphics:

Homepage Banner

Dashboard Graphic

Canvas Buttons

iPad Overlay

Powerpoint Assets

I also made Powerpoint assets. These included a title slide and a content slide. For the title slide, I decided to use the same graphic from my monitor background, and for my content slide, I decided to keep it very simple to allow for easy comprehensibility.

Title Slide

Content Slide

Final Menu + Final Thoughts

Overall, this training was very useful in prepping me for designing custom studio graphics in the future. I was excited to design studio graphics for the first time because I haven’t worked in environment design very much. Overall, I enjoyed seeing what I could do creatively, while still following guidelines and requirements.

November

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Design STA Hiring Flyer

Project Overview: Design a visually engaging flyer that promotes hiring for Graphic Design and Web Development Student Technology Assistants (STAs).

This project was a large learning curve for me. One of the bigger hurdles was balancing design with practicality (fitting all the required text onto the page). The first drafts either didn’t have a clear message (left) or were too text-heavy (right). Even after condensing the information and playing around with the colors and elements, nothing was really working.

As Leilani (the Art Director) and I discussed possible edits to the above drafts, I created a third option that is more visually engaging, but that ultimately ran into the same problems: did not look like a graphic design hiring flyer and was too busy.

At this point it was decided that the flyer should have more visuals. The text was condensed even further to include a new hook (“Are you creative?”), the job title, 3 open positions, a few bullet points about the job, and how to apply.

With this feedback, I modified the very first draft to lean more heavily into a graphic design/digital look.

My Final Thoughts: I’m not entirely happy with the final design. I think it’s a little static and the background is plain, BUT it does have more of a graphic design-vibe and a clearer hierarchy than the previous versions. Overall, I learned a lot about designing layouts and what to prioritize when creating a poster with a purpose. I think in the future I’ll spend more time in the thumbnail step so I have more stability when jumping into Illustrator.

Course Graphics Training

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Course Graphics Training

I began Course Graphics Training, starting with designing Style A/Style B graphics. For my course graphics, I chose to use the course “Intro to Design Thinking,” which was a class I took last semester.

For each style, I created:

Canvas dashboard/homepage graphics

Canvas buttons

Powerpoint resources

Stinger slides

Style A

First Drafts

For my Style A graphics, I decided on the green background because I felt it complimented the picture of the professor well. I created these graphics with the templates provided to me in the dropbox.

Canvas Graphics

Powerpoint Graphics/Templates

Canvas Buttons

After this, I received feedback to:

  • Change the bottom bottom bar of the Canvas graphics to an accent color that compliments the course and primary color

Incorporating Feedback

After receiving feedback, I decided to change the bottom bar to a darker blue to compliment the course and primary green.

Style B

First Drafts

Here were my first drafts for Style B. I decided on having a photo with a wall of sticky notes as the background photo because when I took the class last semester, our whiteboards often looked like that when we brainstorming/ideating our ideas.

Canvas Graphics

Powerpoint Graphics/Templates

Canvas Buttons

After this, I received feedback to:

  • Put “Intro to Design” in the first line of the Canvas Homepage graphic and “Thinking” on the bottom. Also, to shrink the green background box to match the length of the text.
  • I forgot to change the background of one of my Powerpoint slide templates, so to add the sticky note wall to Slide 2.

Incorporating Feedback

After receiving feedback, I shrunk the background box and changed the text formatting on the Canvas Homepage graphic. I also added the correct background to my Powerpoint slide template.

Stinger Animations

I also made Stinger Animations for this training—which I had never done before—so I was very excited to use Adobe After Effects for the first time! It wasn’t too challenging to use, and I look forward to using it more in the future.

Final Menus + Final Thoughts

Here are the final menus for my two sets of course graphics:

Style A

Style B

Overall, this training taught me how how to navigate the LAITS server and how to use the course graphics templates. It taught me how to pick appropriate colors for the graphics I’m creating and was my introduction to Adobe After Effects!

Orientation ✧.*

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° Hellooo, I’m Nicholas Peasley : ̗̀➛ a new Design STA. I’m currently a 2nd year Advertising major from Fort Worth, TX. I’m very interested in UX and hope to be a product designer in the future ✧˖°

Some of my interests include ⇢

✧ taekwondo

✧ cooking

✧ point and shoot photography ˚⋆｡˚

° Today was my first day in the design studio! It was really cool seeing all the different tools and applications the STAs use on a regular basis. I’m very excited to start this new part of my design journeyᵎᵎ I’m hoping to learn a lot, and hopefully make a few friends along the way! ₊˚⊹♡

– Nicholas Peasley ฅ^._.^ฅ

October

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Texas Politics Project – Internship Flyer and Digital Display Ads

Project Overview: Re-design/update the 2016 TxP Internship flyer to reflect the updated Texas Politics Project Website.

2016 Flyer / Draft 1 / Revision from client feedback / Revision from art director feedback:

Client Feedback on Draft 1: Preference for the banner look to the chevron look. Incorporate more clean lines to reflect the re-designed website. Replace header text.

Art Director Feedback: Change the fill of the icons and add a drop shadow to make them stand out.

Notes: This project has been a good exercise in layout design and incorporating feedback. I like the changes made from “Draft 1” to “Revision from art director feedback”. I think for the first draft I stuck too closely to the original flyer. The latest draft feels a bit more modern.

Final Product

Orientation

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Orientation

This was my first week as a Design STA! I went over the handbook, customized my blog, and got to meet my fellow STAs.

Using Dropbox

The first thing I did was find a meme and upload it to Dropbox.

STA Bio

Next, I made my STA bio. I used Photoshop and InDesign. I decided to keep it relatively simple, keeping it at two fonts and two colors.

STA Handbook

After that, I made a slideshow recapping the STA Handbook using Google Slides. This was an interesting process for me because usually when I use Google Slides, I use a premade template. It was fun to get to test my design skills somewhere where I don’t usually utilize them.

STA Caricature

Lastly, I made my STA caricature using Illustrator. Graphic design/character design is not my strongest skill, so I was a little daunted by this, but I’m happy with the way it turned out! I think in the future, I’d like to work on making faces slightly more realistic, but for the most part, I’m happy with the style and turnout of this caricature.