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November 6, 2025 By Tomas Marulanda-Mesa

Spring 2026 Roster Poster: Sprites!

This week, I worked on adding non-tag graffiti elements. I did a few fuller, bubble style graffitis as well as some sprites and small characters. For many of these, I found inspiration in my hometown of Medellin, which is absolutely full of graffiti. I found some of these characters on the areas located on the map below!

All of these are in downtown Medellin: the bottom circle near the government, the middle one near the famous Plaza Botero, and the top one in the neighborhood surrounding the University of Antioquia.

https://sta.laits.utexas.edu/blog/2025/11/06/55258/

Filed Under: Fall 2025 – Spring 2026, We are STAs

2026 Summer Marketing: Halloween Post

October 31, 2025 By Sasha Kenney

2026 Summer Marketing: Halloween Post


Over the past couple months, I have worked on the 2026 summer marketing Halloween post.

Ideation

Based on the ideas offered in the brief and by Nicholas, I began finding inspiration for color palette and composition. I found that I wanted to focus on portraying various Texas school mascots “trick-or-treating.”

After receiving feedback, I decided to focus in on the first direction.

Initial sketch.
Beginning on Illustrator.

Some of the feedback I received:

  • a bit hard to tell which mascot is which
  • to reconsider the overall perspective considering the alignment of the fence/sidewalk/skyline/door height
  • maybe use less specific colors for the mascots in order to still convey the Halloween atmosphere.

Based on this feedback, I tried changing directions completely and creating graphics with a lot less color range and detail. However, I was encouraged to return to my original design as the mascots being in full color meant it was clear exactly who they are. So it was back to the drawing board.

Here is before and after another round of feedback.

  • eliminated the ghost costume in order to show the entirety of Reveille
  • switched Bevo to be the one offering treats in order to better communicate that other schools are visiting UT to take our classes
  • changed the UNT mascot to the SMU stallion
  • portrayed Reveille on all fours
  • added trick-or-treating baskets with school logos to be extra clear which school is which
  • mocked up placement for a banner with the main text

A few more tweaks.

  • added red to Reveille’s costume to more clearly communicate that is it meant to be a vampire costume
  • added hair, tail, and more stitches to SMU Stallion
  • changed fence color
  • added candy to Bevo’s bucket

Final Design!!

Filed Under: Fall 2025 – Spring 2026

October 30, 2025 By Tomas Marulanda-Mesa

-Spring 2026 Roster Poster Changes-

This week, I went through and started making a new iteration of the Spring 2026 Roster Poster, with a different direction this time. This time around, I aimed at a more realistic, brick wall environment that seemed more textured and like a real wall with graffiti on it, instead of just textures.

This has allowed me to make the elements within the design much more grounded to the its environment, as seen especially on the title and the base for the STA portrait frames in black.

https://sta.laits.utexas.edu/blog/2025/10/30/55242/

Filed Under: Fall 2025 – Spring 2026, We are STAs

October 23, 2025 By Tomas Marulanda-Mesa

-Continuing Spring 2026 STA Roster Poster-

This past week I was able to make significant progress on the style of the Roster Poster, and am now experimenting with how do include various graffiti assets alongside the STA frames.

https://sta.laits.utexas.edu/blog/2025/10/23/55235/

Filed Under: Fall 2025 – Spring 2026, We are STAs

Fall 2025

October 17, 2025 By Nicholas Peasely

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

Filed Under: Fall 2025 – Spring 2026, We are STAs

TGDP Posters

October 17, 2025 By Asha Rountree

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.

Filed Under: Fall 2025 – Spring 2026

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