Week LXI

Top secret!

It was decided we could use a few more variants of this backdrop, which I made by variously rotating the gradient overlay and the pattern layer. As for swapping it out in After Effects, we all know how much Adobe likes to make simple actions intuitive and accessible, so it only took around an hour to figure out how to drag the files into the file panel and then alt-drag them into the layer panel.

TGDP Banner 5

Laying this out has still been pretty tricky. The blocks of text are pretty uneven, and chronology is important, so… This is one attempt at a zig-zag timeline, but it could use some more shapes to make that clear, maybe lines or arrows? And the background is still a placeholder.

Faculty Search Committee PPT Redesign

Project: Faculty Search Committee PPT Redesign
Client /Prof: Grayson Hunt
completion status: WIP
staff guidance: Maddy K
STA team members: Lorena
description/plans: TBA
To be completed: TBA

From what I understand, we are redesigning the powerpoint for a presentation about grad school demographic data, and by we I mean Lorena, because I have not done much besides take notes so far. I may eventually be reformatting the data below into some kind of charts and graphs but the best direction for that has not been entirely clear. Watch this space…

Week 15

NTR 306 Instapoll Stinger

Project: NTR 306 Instapoll stinger
Client /Prof: Hockett-Cooper, Leidy
Completion status: January 30, 2023
Staff guidance: Julie Phillips & Maddy
Description/plans: Creating a new Instapoll stinger for NTR 306 that incorporates the color and text associated with the class.

 

 

UTFC Green Screen 8.1B (Meat, Seafood, & Dairy)

Project: UTFC Green Screen 8.1B
Completion status: February 2, 2023
Staff guidance: Yazz
Description/plans: I just had to make a few edits that Yazz gave after the winter break (deleting/changing out photos). We ended up having a freeze, so Yazz added the final edits and submitted it for approval.

.  

**We had a freeze the rest of the week so not much other work was done:(

Week LX

Top secret!

I’ve gotten approval to share this, but the actual purpose is still classified. All that needs to be said is that it’s a studio backdrop. This is my first time making an animated one, so I finally understand what keyframes are.

There’ll be a few more versions coming up, and you’ll see them all soon, I think?

TGDP Banner 5

Initially, I was trying to draft this in Photoshop, with placeholder blobs of text. That didn’t really work. The format here is pretty particular, with the length and hierarchy of various text blocks. This is where I got with actually making a vector draft:

Some stuff could still be fine-tuned… especially the image layout. This was really just my best attempt to fit the text and images at all, without considering eye flow too much. There’s probably a better way to structure it, though the volume and assymetry of material leaves not that much wiggle room.

Week 3

Web Accessibility Standards

 

Started on: January 23, 2023

Completed on: January 26, 2023

STA Guidance: Valerie Tran

Description: Web Accessibility Standards

 

This week I completed a training on web accessibility standards. This training helped me learn the basics of how to design websites and create graphics to be more accessible to users. Three of the main concepts I gathered where that 1) text on a background picture or color needs to have enough contrast for the user to be able to see it. 2) Text and elements of an info graphic/webpage also have to be large enough for the user to see them and lastly, 3) Web pages must have a clear HTML hierarchy (this means usage of headers when the developer wants to highlight a main point) since component files of a the page might be used with other applications (such as text-to-speech) to provide accessibility. If the correct elements are not used, then the text-to-speech process might be inaccurate.

 

Part I: Infographics

The first part of this training involved an assignment in which I had to find two graphics online and tweak them to be more accessible to users. The first graphic I found was an infographic about mRNA vaccination. I used a tool that checks the contrast between a text color and a background color to identify that the contrast was very low on this graphic. I made some adjustments to the improve the contrast on Figma. First, I lightened the background and then darkened the color of all the text until the Coolors tools approved the contrast level. I was still have issues seeing the text so I also increased the font size and adjusted some of the pictures on the graphic. In order to do this I cut out sections of the images on I wanted to re-size, saved them as PNGs, placed a rectangle of the same color of the graphic to cover the image and then pasted the re-sized PNGs of it onto the rectangle.

 

Infographic 1 (original)

Infographic 1 (edited)

 

For the second infographic, I followed a similar process of identifying where the contrast failed to meet accessibility standards and adjusted in on Figma. Editing this graphic was slightly more challenging since there were elements (the yellow circular icons) that were originally on a different color background. I learned how to use the tools to create and cut out sections on Figma and how to delete parts on Mac Photo Preview.

 

Infographic 2 (original)

Infographic 2 (edited)

 

Intro to Websites PowerPoint

 

Started on: January 26, 2023

Completed on: January 27, 2023

STA Guidance: Valerie Tran

Description: Introduction to Websites

 

I created a PowerPoint after reading the LAITS Knowledge Base page about websites.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12uCghpWPpzUcXcXhROjw6tTLO0SKP9itR1-mT0BvUh0/edit?usp=sharing

Week 14

STA Presentation Poster

Client /Prof: LAITS
Started: January 17th, 2023
Staff/STA guidance: Maddy & Leilani

This week I mostly worked on banner iterations. Last week I did a couple of drafts of what the art style could look like — pulling inspiration from Juno and Leilani’s Pinterest board.

Also added STA names of each studio to Leilani’s draft.

notes from Maddie: add crosshatching for shading & change event date/time

  

Edits after notes: