STA Blog

STA Work Blog

STAs: Student Technology Assistants

Who We Are
LAITS: IT and Facilities Director, Joe TenBarge initiated the Student Technology Assistant program in 2004. STAs are UT students who work on a variety of projects in collaboration with UT faculty and LAITS staff members. STAs assist College of Liberal Arts faculty members and administrative staff with print and web design. From building presentations, to creating audio/visual works, and producing online classes in the LAITS film studios, STAs are instrumental in helping COLA faculty realize their vision for multimedia projects that enhance their teaching and the students learning experience. By the end of their student careers, STAs have portfolios which demonstrate their accrued technical and design skills.

Prospective STAs:

Creative and technically inclined students are appointed as STAs for one year, with the possibility of being rehired as long as they study at the university. Applicants for the program are hired before both long semesters. Interested students may look for postings on Hire-A-Longhorn when positions are available. Positions will have Student Technology Assistant (illustrator or web designer) in the title of the job post.

Faculty and Staff:

Faculty & Staff with questions about services, please contact us.

https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/laits/contacts.php

  • Audio Services: Michael C Heidenreich, Director of Studio Operations & STA Program Coordinator
  • Video Services: Kelly Webster, Video Production Supervisor, Video STA Supervisor
  • Graphic Design & Web Design Services: Suloni Robertson, Art Director / Design & Coding STA Supervisor

STA Presentation

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STA Presentation

I haven’t been doing a very good job at updating my blog lately. I spent a few weeks during late-March/early-April working on my STA Presentation. I was selected to present with a few other STAs this year and picked the Immigration History website as my topic since I put so much time into it this semester. I feel like it was such a great personal experience for me to experience this whole process; planning a slideshow about my project and practicing in front of so many people in order to polish my delivery. I’ll leave a few pictures of my slides below.

Unfortunately, due to personal circumstances, I couldn’t attend the final STA presentation in person, I ended up going to the video STA set and recording myself. Not to be a show off, but I feel like I looked cooler than anyone else when they showed me on the screen.

Sorted bibliographies and tags

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Today I solved some issues on the way bibliographies were sorted:

Also, I refactored some code for getting an specific attribute from an object:

And worked when a nested page is not found, now it redirects to the search page where it was called:

HRC Visit

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Rise of Everyday Design at the Harry Ransom Center

 

On Monday I went to the Harry Ransom Center to visit their Rise of Everyday Design exhibit. I had never gone to an exhibit in the Harry Ransom Center so I was eager to head over from my shift and see one, especially because it was on design. When I went in I was excited to see the exhibit was focused on the Arts and Crafts Movement. Last year, I took a course called The History of Design and it focused primarily on the Arts and Crafts Movement taught by Dr. Monica Pennick. Walking through the exhibit I saw lots of familiar names. In class we had learned about Ruskin, Pugin, William Morris, etc so I was excited to see these names and pieces we had learned about in person. It was crazy to me that UT has such an amazing resource like the HRC on campus for students to use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What was so interesting to me about the exhibit and the Arts and Crafts movement is the struggle between elevation in design and high-quality craftsmanship versus egalitarian design. The Arts and Crafts Movement was centered on the fundamentals of handcrafted and well-made design. However, over time and increasing popularity of Arts and Crafts products there was a push for manufacturing products for the masses. I wonder if craftsmanship should be sacrificed for the purpose of making it more accessible? Was the Arts and Crafts movement tarnished when it made its way to the US and became a product of capitalism? On the other hand, is it right to limit “good design” to only those who can afford it? In the end, I think that design, different from art, is more responsible in making products that are “good design” but also egalitarian. There can be fine art, but it is a designer’s job to make art more accessible to the masses.

Rise of Everyday Design at the HRC!

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For our STA meeting this week, Suloni had us visit the Rise of Everyday Design exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center. Here are some things that I thought were cool!

 

Glass Shots: It turns out people have been editing photos wayyy before the invention of Photoshop! Shown here is something called “Glass shots”. What they would do is set up a glass panel in front of the camera and have artists paint over the scene, and the camera would capture it.

Here is another example of old day photo editing. The original photo is displayed on top (notice the cat). Then the edited version is displayed on the bottom in the pamphlet (the cat’s gone!).

Negative Space & Ink: While these images are pretty simple looking, I liked the waves of the lines and the contrast between the white and black ink.

Photography: This image was an old photograph from the late ’30s. This piece caught my eye because it seemed really modern for such an old image (photographers today are still doing things like this)!

Print Design: This is a poster that was part of the exhibition that I thought was interesting. It had an interesting vintage yet modern feel about it. The lines and typeface was really nice to look at.

Architecture: This is an image of one of Frank LLoyd Wright’s designs. This part of the exhibition spoke to me because I actually went to one of his houses in Chicago. I remember it being really beautiful and modern. His incorporation of nature into his designs is super aesthetic and unique.

Morris & Co:  Nothing too crazy here, but I really liked looking at these fabric designs. I wish I had some in my apartment!

Kelmscott Press & Typeface: The rest of these images show printed books with some really pretty fonts.

Reflection

One of the first pieces I saw in the exhibition was the glass shot. This particular piece was super interesting to me because it really showed how innovative artists and photographers were. The idea of painting on glass on top of a natural scene has a very imaginative and almost childlike aspect to it. This also really spoke to me because it’s clear how this idea has been translated through time to Photoshop. It’s really cool to see the history of photo-editing and the creative aspects to it.

 

I also really enjoyed looking at and learning about the Kelmscott press and various typefaces that were created along with it. The books and fonts that were displayed were sooo beautiful. There was even a whole page that looked like a painting! I would love to have a book like that. Fun fact: I also learned that the first letter of each chapter that gets enlarged is called an “initial”. The typefaces especially, it was really cool to see how some of the fonts that we use today are still reminiscent of the ones displayed!

 

Overall, I’m happy Suloni gave us the chance to see this exhibit! It’s been a while since I’ve just relaxed and went to a museum environment. I enjoyed this experience and learned things I didn’t expect to!

Tagging the site

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When creating a Single page application, search consoles trying to redirect to the website can get confused, updating the routing functionality of the site and its meta tags as title and content clarify how to reach to an specific site.