See You Later

I can’t believe it’s time to graduate. It’s been 2 years since I joined the LAITS Design department and I’m so grateful that I can join the team and meet y’all. These past two years have been a blast, thanks to all of you awesome folks!

Big shoutout to Leilani, Lorena, Thang, Marissa, Lila, Adriana, Diya, Raaga, Shriya, Kyra, and Shanda for always having my back and keeping the vibes positive. Whether it was lending a helping hand on a project or simply sharing a laugh during our breaks, each of you has made my time here truly memorable.  You guys are so nice to me :). De’sha, I’m glad you could be my design manager this year! Your guidance as my STA Manager and Art Director has been instrumental in my growth as a designer and as a person. Your feedback, support, and openness to new ideas have not only helped me succeed in my role but have also inspired me to push myself further than I thought possible. Thank you for believing in me and for giving me the opportunity to contribute to our team’s success.

I also want to extend my thanks to the entire LAITS staff, as well as my fellow STAs from other departments, and all our clients. Your trust in my abilities and your effective communication have made every project a rewarding experience. Stacy, I’m grateful for all the mentorship you gave me in the past two projects. I learned a lot from the collaboration between us, especially about responsiveness and the WordPress tool.

Next?

As I embark on the next chapter of my journey, I carry with me fond memories of our time together and the valuable lessons I’ve learned along the way. While I may be saying goodbye for now, I look forward to the possibility of crossing paths with each of you again in the future.

Meanwhile, I’m thrilled to share that I’ll be pursuing a Master’s in Design Tech at Cornell University. It’s a computational design program that merges architecture, computer science, and ecology, and I couldn’t be more excited for this next chapter.

While I may be saying goodbye for now, I look forward to the possibility of crossing paths with each of you again in the future. Until then, take care and keep creating amazing things together.

Week 4/29 – 5/2 : Even More Training :0

Pixel Art in Illustrator Training

This week I started another training on creating Pixel Art in Illustrator! This was fun because I love working in Illustrator and I got to use a picture of my cat as the reference photo. Here is what I came up with:

I like how this tutorial not only included how to use grids and the live paint tool, but also how to edit the colors afterwards using the ‘Recolor Artwork’ tool. Under here, you can edit global colors, adjust saturation, hue, luminosity, etc., and choose from provided presets. My favorite of the four iterations is the third (created using the ‘Earth-tone Preset’).

Week 4/22 – 4/25 : Training Continued

History of Design Training

This week I continued on trainings including the History of Design Training! After reading through the different design eras I chose to create a poster following the Postmodernism Era because I wanted to explore new techniques in Photoshop. Here is what I came up with:

This design fits into the Postmodernism movement because it uses bold, primary colors, a combination of text/photos, and texture. The repeating elements are also reminiscent of 60s pop art. I will probably use the techniques I learned from the filter gallery to achieve different textures and photo styles in my future designs. I learned how to alter Blending Options under the Layer Style panel. Before following the tutorial I didn’t know about what these sliders did:

2025 Summer Marketing Campaign!

Staff Guidance: De’sha

Client: LAITS

Orientation & Fall A-frame Redesign:

I added some sunglasses on top of the textbook in the Summer Orientation A-frame and edited the phrasing of the title in the Fall Semester A-frame. We don’t want enrolled students to think we only offer core courses during the summer. Conversely, for Student Orientation, these students have almost no prior course work, therefore they’re more likely to be interested in core courses.

Fall Digital Display Redesign:

The goal of this redesign was to simplify and reduce the amount of text. We previously accomplished this in our 2024 Spring semester Digital Displays Ad when we heard they only appear for about 8 seconds on the TV screen.

I started by removing the courses and website URL since we won’t have our website fully updated in the Fall semester by the time these displays are aired. I then replaced the title with one from our recently edited (new) Fall A-frames (see images above for reference).

STA Presentation 2024!

WHoop! The 2025 STA Presentation happened about a week ago and I spent a lot of time editing and perfecting my presentation on the Summer Marketing Campaign (especially because I was the first presenter !!!) I have been told by many people that I did a good job kicking off the STA Presentation but I have yet to muster the courage to rewatch myself present on the live stream recording:) I was very excited and honored to be allowed to present this year and hopefully, I will have another interesting project to present next year!

4/22/24 – 4/26/24

This week I was assigned animation training! Below is an 8-bit animation I did in Photoshop:

I also worked in Adobe Illustrator for the first time and did pixel art of my dad with a squid plushy on his head:

I haven’t updated in a while due to a main project I’ve been working on being confidential so the other work I’ve been getting hasn’t been enough to dedicate a post to. Now, however, I do have enough material!

UTFC Work

I’ll summarize this as it’s work I’ve made posts about before. This month, I was able to complete a PowerPoint presentation for the textbook and I’ve also completed 2 banners for the project.

STA Presentations!

This was the first time I attended an STA presentation and it was a ton of fun! I learned so much about the work form other departments and got to see my fellow design STA’s present their work. It was a nice experience to cheer on all the students who work so hard in this department and I got to know some of the faculty better. It really put into perspective how tight-knit LAITS is and that it can really build connections and a healthy work culture.

Foundations of Data Science

I was assigned a new type of course graphics for the Edx department. I’ve never done this kind of work before and it was pretty intimating at first. My main assignments are to design a logo for the new class and animate it. I had know idea where to start but luckily I was given a sheet of past examples I could take inspiration from.

I also looked up how data science is normally represented and found some ideas to go off of. Here are some logo designs I was able to draft as of now.

After showing these to the client, they said that they really like the concept of the gears and puzzle piece look. They offered some notes on implementing a possible regression reference on the design so i’ll be looking into that.

Wow it’s been awhile since I posted! Here are the projects I’ve worked on since March 20:

STA Presentation PPT Template

Client/Prof: LAITS
Completion Status: Started on Mar 21
Staff Guidance: De’sha
Completed on: April 1

I worked on the presentation templates for the 2024 STA Presentation!

My hours per week are shorter than other STAs, so Leilani stepped in to finalize the template (below is what it looks like with my information):

My own STA Presentation!!

Client/Prof: LAITS
Staff Guidance: De’sha & Mike

This year I was chosen to present at the 2024 STA Presentation event! At this event STAs, staff, and alum came together to talk about the program and what we’ve done. I was super excited to be a part of it!

Here is the recording of the presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMASUoQOcHs

Texas German Retractable Banner #11

Client/Prof: Margaret Blevins
Completion Status: Started on Feb 20
Staff Guidance: De’sha

I’ve been working on so many other projects I had to delay this one! This is the final draft of TGDP Banner #11:

Back to my Background Design Training

Client/Prof: LAITS
Completion Status: Started on Oct 25
Staff Guidance: De’sha
Completed on: TBA

It’s been so long since I’ve had the chance to work on this!! As a reminder, I am creating a tutorial for future STAs to learn more about Adobe Illustrator and how to create a background in the program. I really want to finish it before I graduate. Recently I just finished a draft 1 of the tutorial and it’s now gotten feedback from Leilani, so I’ll be incorporating that. But while I work on that here’s my cute tutorial header: