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Demo and faculty onboarding resources

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Demo and faculty onboarding resources

★ Overview: I was tasked with creating course graphics for a LAITS online demo course used for kick-off meetings. The main guideline was to emphasize UT imagery in these graphics

I began by collecting images of UT-related imagery, and created Canvas Homepage mockups for each photo to compare them side-by-side.

LAITS admin ended up liking the idea of including the fountain (the middle option) the most because it felt representative of the location LAITS is on campus (Mezes hall is right next to the fountain). I received some advice to move the photo up slightly to better display the fountain. Taking this into account, I then created the Canvas home page and dashboard banners and matching buttons:

★ Final Design: 

★ Reflection: These graphics were pretty straightforward, but they reminded me that course graphic images should make the people who are using the course feel represented. In this case, that involved choosing photographs that align not only with UT imagery, but with the people working at LAITS.  

October Projects Cont.

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This and last week, I continued designing the logo and course graphics for the spring class Agentic Software Engineering. We’re coming up on the deadline, so I’ve been working on finishing up finalizing the design. I’ve been working on developing several different designs to give the client as many options as possible. Right now, we’re still decided which logo to move forward with, but we should have it finalized by today or Monday.

Initial Concepts

Final concepts

Course Graphics Concepts

While I waited on feedback from these course graphics, I’d work on designing the 2027 STA presentation poster. We scrapped the original design since we felt it was too similar to a previous design and switched to another idea. I was tasked to portray an environment that was like a “behind-the-scenes” area (or technical room) for game shows, with the shows playing on the screens with our STA’s inside them. After confirmation of the concept, I began working inside illustrator to design all of the assets and designs I will need when I begin inserting the cut-out photos.

Original design. From left to right; Concept, initial Illustrator implementation, edited from constructive feedback

Design version 2. From left to right; 4 versions of concept sketches, 2 versions of Illustrator implementation

Design version 3 (current version), concept sketch

Illustrator implementation, work in progress

I’m glad to be working on these projects and gaining the experience from them. I’ve been enjoying learning many new artistic skills and being able to express my creativity. I look forward to continue working on these and future projects.

UX Training

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Spicewood Floral

Task: Create a website for Spicewood Floral while maintaining accessible web standards

Status: Complete

Accessibility Research

In order to make my website accessible, I started by completing the KB WCAG Training. For that training, I did an analysis on two posters then imported a website into Figma and made adjustments so it complied with WCAG. The website I found was the USA Gymnastic site and it wasn’t too out of compliance. There were a few areas that needed contrast improvements and alt text, but other than that it was pretty good in terms of accessibility.

Sketches

Before jumping into Figma, I created some wireframed of the floral website. I tried to keep the “client’s” desire to connect with potential buyers when designing the website’s flow.

Lo-fi on Figma

Once me sketches were approved, I created the basic layout structure on Figma.

Polishing the Site

Using the brand guide that Lila provided, I began adding colors and fonts to make this website realistic.

Reflection

This training was fun and reminded me that I enjoy working in Figma sometimes. I had to really think about the user’s flow and expectations when designing each page. Since I have done some floral shopping, I tried to put myself in their shoes and provide the information they might seek clearly and upfront.

Edits to Course Graphics

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Edits to Pre-Existing Course Graphics

★ Overview: Over the summer, I was tasked with updating existing course graphics to reflect the current professors and programs. This set of edits was pretty straightforward – I simply changed the text on existing course graphics.

Overall, I completed edits to 10 different courses. The updated versions (most of them solely with updated professor names) are listed below. For each edit, I updated the Canvas dashboard (left) and Canvas home page banner (right) graphics:

★ Reflection: Although this was a very simple assignment, it’s important to realize that sometimes basic, seemingly mundane updates are what keep the wheel turning for all of UT Liberal Arts courses to be properly displayed in a timely manner on Canvas. I’m glad to have helped keep everything up to date.

October Week 2

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I submitted the finalized version of the STA classroom support poster and have been assigned new projects. One that I was just assigned to do this week is making classroom graphics for an engineering class. They’ve requested a custom logo and I have been tasked to design it.

The client stated that they want the logo to represent “computer hieroglyphics”. First, I simplified the task. Some of the words I gathered from their request are “communication”, “engineering”, and “tools”. So, using those words, I researched symbols that represent those words. From there, I used those references to help me design similar ones with a more hieroglyphic look. To be honest it was quite difficult especially since I don’t design logos too often, however I made sure to make as many concepts as I could before getting into details.

Reference provided by the professor

First wave of concepts

Second wave of concepts

Third wave of concepts

Final wave of concepts

I’m now working on a prototype within illustrator to see how it would look inside the program. That’s all that I have to share for this week.

Computer Support Roster Poster

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Computer Support Roster Poster

Client: LAITS

Task: Create a poster showcasing all the Computer Support STAs with a Chutes and Ladders theme

Status: Complete

Inspiration

We wanted the poster to be as reminiscent of the game’s box cover as possible, so that was my main point of inspiration.

Sketches

Here are my initial sketches and planning.

Iterations (and more iterations)

…and more iterations! For these, I worked out both making it look similar to the source art and adapting the look to best accommodate the photos of the STAs.

The Final Poster

Once I got the actual photos, I could start working on the final version! It was tricky to try and get everyone in places that were logical, showed their faces, and had good contrast, but I think it turned out okay (most questionable ladder-climbing though…kids do not try this at home). I also added a balloon to match the original packaging.