Week 1 – 2

my 1st week!

APRIL 21st – 28th

 

This was my first week as a Web Development and Design STA 🙂 🙂 🙂 let’s gooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

 

I trained one-on-one with Thang and published my first ever website! We used WordPress to update the university’s Psychology Lab webpages. Thanks to Daniela, we were given an up-to-date template to work with. After taking a look at how previous content was transferred, we cloned the new template site using the NS Cloner plug-in. We then copied content from the ten-year-old site into its new template using block coding. I also learned how to edit the website’s backend using HTML and CSS in Visual Studio Code. The Psych Lab pages will soon be ready for client review once they’re cross-referenced with the design team for crisp visuals.

 

Here are some screenshots of our work :

 

new sample template

 

 

 

psych lab reference site – draft 01

 

 

original psych lab site

 

newly published site – draft 01 

 

 

 

I also began working on the banner design for my STA Blog Post page. I started creating my official background in Miro. I am now developing drafts for typography using Photoshop. My end goal is to create a three-dimensional graffiti font.

 

color palette inspiration

 

 

 

drafts

 

 

 

official background & accents

 

 

 

current typography draft

 

 

Farewell Post

Gracias y adios

As the title says, this is my farewell post 🙁 I will no longer be an STA during the upcoming fall semester due to a heavy course load. During this last week I will be wrapping up the 2 website migration I was working on and write some notes for the next STA to take on the project. That being said, I am extremely honored for the opportunity to have been a Web Dev and Design STA for the Spring 2023 semester. When I first joined, I was not truly aware of how big of an impact LAITS (both full time and student employees) have on UT. I am in awe of how huge some of the projects the other STAs were working on were like the UTFC Textbook, Carrie’s Precursors, Thang’s Master of Economics site (and all of the others projects too!). You guys are extremely talented! Luisa, Thang, Adrian, Marissa, Carrie, Leilani, Lorena, and Isaiah, I wish you all the best!

 

I’d also like to give a big thanks to Valerie, Maddy, Stacy, Chris, and Marianne.

 

To STA Managers: Valerie and Maddy thank you so much for always being there and helping me get started as an STA. When I first joined, everything seemed daunting but both of you made the process of joining the team very enjoyable! You both made the Dev Lab a wonderful and cozy workplace and you were both always there to answers all my questions and provide feedback 🙂 .  Thank you, especially for helping me with my STA Presentation, when I say I couldn’t have done it with out ya’ll I really mean it. I think I would have had a stroke on the stage.

 

To LAITS Web Development Team: Stacy, Chris and Marianne thank you for working with me on the LAITS Web Dev team. I learned so much through out this past semester from all of you. Thank you to Stacy and Chris for introducing me and guiding me through multiple projects throughout the semester. Thank you to Marianne for answering my questions and giving me feedback!

 

Moving Forward

This summer I will be interning at Texas Instruments (the one that makes the calculators) in Dallas. I will be running software tests on embedded processors. This is a more electrical engineer-y job than you would expect someone working on the front end of websites would do but I am very excited nonetheless! Looking forward I plan on continuing to work and learn more in the software field with a focus on Software Design and Data Science in the Electrical and Computer Engineering program here at UT. I also plan on building my portfolio by creating apps and software tools in the near future. I do not have a portfolio (yet!) but you will be able to see any of my future projects on my Github.

 

With that being said, you can reach me on LinkedIn if you want to know more about any of the projects I’ve worked on, if you are interested in embedded processors I guess, or if you just want to say hi!

Thank you LAITS and STA Team for everything and goodbye! <3

 

 

 

 

Farewell post (I’ll probably be back)

BYE!

Being an STA for the 2022-2023 year has been such a great experience! Spring semester I received a larger variety of projects (image sourcing, course graphics, posters, logos, etc…) I’ve been able to learn so much from my fellow STAs and Design managers. I’ve also been fortunate to receive other design/art opportunities where I can apply what I’ve learned at LAITS. I plan on coming back in the Fall (from Italy haaaha) and designing more projects for LAITS!! Hopefully, I will see everyone after a restful and enriching trip to Italy ( I’ll try to take pictures to share). I’ll miss the fun polls on the board and having a group of design experts to ask for help though.

Thank you to Carrie, Leilani, Lorena, Luisa, Adrain, Thang, Daniela, De’sha, and Isaiah for being a supportive and welcoming team of graphic and web designers! I have learned so much from y’all and for that, I am so thankful. I’m always inspired by everyones’ work and hope you guys have a great summer!

BIG thanks to Maddy, Valerie, and Suloni for hiring me and allowing me to work on the design team at LAITS. I’ve gained invaluable skills and knowledge from this job and you guys!

 

Projects I’ll be Handing Off:

• R.A.C.E. Lab logo: I believe Maddy was taking over this project since she and I worked together on the initial drafts and final picks. But if another STA picks up the logo design, we are making a logo for Professor Ibekwe-Okaforwork’s research website. Her research will focus on the effects Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems (family, social, and cultural relationships) have on black children’s development.
  • • key terms: access, resilience, systems (Brunfenbrenner), education, early development, adversity, & black joy
    • steer away from explicit political imagery and colors (red and blue)
    • color: neutrals, earth tones, greenery
    • layers and systems to the way people develop

 

• UTCF Backdrops/Image Sourcing: I am currently working on 7.5 Hair and Make-up image sourcing and the images I have found thus far have been logged in the spreadsheet, box folder, and PowerPoint. I think 4.1 Professions and Occupations still needs to be signed off by either Maddy or Valerie. As for backdrops, I sourced for UTCF modules 5 & 6 but couldn’t find any images for 6.2 Bamako. Leilani, Carrie, and I have tested those images in the studio. The PSD template for modules 5 & 6 are in the box folder and still need to be edited a bit (I think Leilani was going to do this).

Me shocked to be in Cairo :0

Lorena is Leaving? [ TBD, might be clickbait ]

Hi everyone! This may or may not be my last blog post as an STA, so I’m unsure of how I should be feeling as I write this closing post. My time at LAITS has been so much fun, and I’d be sad to leave but we’ll see where life takes me!

 

My Journey and Shoutouts!

I started here at LAITS as a Content Management STA in December 2021. There I worked on the COLA Web Refresh Project, in which our STA team managed design and content transfer of the UT College of Liberal Arts site to a new operating system. In September 2022 I made the jump over to the Design team, and the rest is history! I’m so grateful for LAITS and the STA program, I feel that I’ve learned a lot here and met so many great people!

 

To the other Design and Web Dev STAs, Adrian, Thang, Louisa, Carrie, Lelani, Marissa, and Daniela — I loved working with all of you, thank you all for a great year! And also of course De’sha in the Fall 2022 semester, thank you for inspiring me and having been such a devoted member of the team! To our new member Isaiah, it was great to have met you and I hope that your time in the Web Dev team will be great!

 

To our STA managers Maddy and Valerie — thank you for being the backbone of this team and doing such a great job guiding us through these semesters. You are both so talented, and seeing how you guys address different design projects and are able to phrase feedback so effectively has been really eye opening to the possibilities of everything design!

 

What I’ve Learned!

Through my time as an STA I’m really grateful for everything I learned, from skills like professional communication and time management all the way to navigating Adobe programs. I feel as though I’ve especially grown more comfortable in Adobe Illustrator as I’ve figured out how to use more of the really great tools the program presents, as well as Adobe After Effects with these more recent animation projects I’ve been assigned.

 

The Near Future!

This summer I’ll be participating in UTLA, which is a UT program in which I’ll be spending the semester in Los Angeles! As a Radio-Television-Film major, I’m really excited to be getting a film-related internship this summer and experiencing LA.

 

I don’t want to make any promises as my Fall 2023 semester is still a little up in the air, but I’m hoping to start working on my big Connecting Experience project to complete my Digital Arts and Media certificate requirements. Basically this project is sort of similar to a capstone or thesis course, but it’s more of personal project that I have a good amount of flexibility with. I’m keeping my project idea under wraps right now, but I’m hoping to do something that really challenges me as a designer and writer, working as a testament to everything I’ve learned at UT!

 

Closing Remarks

And that’s about it! To all the Lorena fans and supporters, totally feel free to follow me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorena-chiles). I’ve really enjoyed my time as an STA and am so thankful for this program. As I mentioned, I’m not sure if I’m coming back for Fall 2023 yet, though y’all will know what I ended up choosing if you see this blog being active again! Bye everyone! <3

AI in Healthcare Course Graphics

Client/Prof: Department of Computer Science, Masters of Science in Artificial Intelligence
Completion Status: Started on April 5
Staff Guidance: Maddy
Completed on: April 27

As I’m leaving for the summer, here’s my last update in this AI in Healthcare project! The following is my animation and design menu with all the assets I made for this course.

UTFC Backdrop Image Sourcing

Project: UTFC Image Sourcing
Client: UTFC
Completion status: started 4/11/23
Staff guidance: Maddy & Valerie
STA team members: Carrie & Leilani
Description/plans: Search for photos of specified cities (natural color, cityscapes, landmarks, skylines) and put them into a PSD template to test as backdrops for UTCF. I went to screen test the module 5 UTCF backdrops with Leilani yesterday. I learned some things to avoid/look-out for in images for the backdrops from Leilani!

5.4 Tunis & 5.6 Caire

 

Vocab Image Sourcing

• some of the new images I sourced for UTCF 4.1 Professions and Occupations