STA Blog

LAITS Student Technology Assistants collaborate with the College of Liberal Arts faculty and administration by re-imagining their instructional and promotional projects with a creative use of video, audio, web and graphic design. STAs learn technical skills on the job with LAITS development studio staff. They build presentations, produce audio/visual works, scan text documents & perform image correction. STAs are instrumental in helping COLA faculty realize their vision for instructional technology projects used to enhance the teaching and learning experience.

Jaclyn’s Blog–1st day as an STA

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Jaclyn’s Blog – 1st day as an STA!

As part of STA orientation, Suloni reviewed rules & guidelines, how to keep time, and the tools we will utilize–including Slack, Harvest, Box, UTDirect, server/volume, and Basecamp.

Also, I met 3 other Design STAs who I will be working with over the summer.

Today I clocked in, created a Basecamp avatar and a banner for my blog (which can be viewed below) using Photoshop, and learned how to input my time using Harvest and UTDirect time reports.

 

Basecamp Avatar

 

Blog Banner

 

I look forward to beginning projects soon!

Farewell!

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Today marks my last day working this season as an STA. Originally, I was debating between taking this job and taking an AET class. To this day I don’t regret my choice! I enjoyed the staff and the projects that I worked on. It’s nice to get paid something you love doing! I got more familiar with Photoshop, and was able to meet some really cool faculty. I would recommend this job if you’re looking to do some graphic design work for the school.

Institute of Digital Scholarship logo and banner designs

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I was asked to work with the department for digital humanities to create a logo and banner for the website. After meeting with the client, I understood that they wanted a combination of digital/techy, and literature. My first sketches looked like this:

I created drafts of a logo that combined a book, the sides of the book creating the “S” in IDS (Institute for Digital Scholarship). This is the mockup from photoshop:

However, it didn’t have the “modern” feel to it, and the client was particular fond of pixelated effects to convey the digital aspect of their work. I took a break from the logo and went to work on the banner instead.

This banner was quickly accepted by the client; they loved it! From there, I got a better idea of what I should create for the logo. Knowing their color choices, I created three different iterations of the similar simple design:

The favorite turned out to be the second, which was my personal favorite as well. The three overlapping squares represent books, while the flat design lends modernity.

Final design:

This was a very fun project to work on, and was my first time working on a solo design project with a client. One valuable thing I have learned is the importance of timely communication when working with clients. I always love to get quick feedbacks, so they must appreciate it as well when I place high priority on their projects. I want to thank Suloni and Andre and Ruben for working closely with me this year on several of our projects, as well as the other wonderful STAs. I will see you guys after summer!