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.
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 & Staff with questions about services, please contact us.
https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/laits/contacts.php
I made an interactive today on canvasser but the psd file was not one I made. This was very easy and quick to put together and is similar to the one that I will be uploading probably tomorrow. I think I am starting to pick up speed, at least today anyways was very productive for me at work!
Today, the fellow STA ladies took a trip to check out Ellsworth Kelly’s “Austin” at the Blanton Museum. The weather was just perfect, and we had a great time exploring the art that represents the beauty of our city. Let’s jump into our field trip !
This was my second time visiting “Austin,” and I was reminded of how amusing it was to see the way light plays with the stained glass, as well as the 14 marble panels that were imported all the way from Italy – the same marbles used by Michelangelo!!!
We then went inside the Blanton Museum to check out Jeffrey Gibson’s This is the Day exhibit. His use of beads, punching bags, paintings, garments, and other daily objects worked well with the exuberant colors, patterns, and materials with text. I love museums!!
Today me and the other STAs went to go check out the Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin near the Blanton. It was a lot of fun and a first time experience for me. We took photos of each other and shared a few stories about ourselves. Hopefully there are more opportunities in the future to get to talk with and learn more about the people I work with on almost a daily basis. It is important to understand other walks of life in order to truly appreciate and respect one another.
The inside of this space was much larger than I imagined it to be. From the outside it seems pretty small, but when you walk inside while it is devoid of visitors it seems like a more than comfortably sized area. It is also a place where loud noise would not be acceptable, I think that has a lot to do with the meditative quality of the art pieces and colors of light coming through form the stain glass windows. In a lot of ways it is like a space of worship or prayer that does not conform to any specific belief, and that emulates a feeling a safe space for all its visitors.
Here are some screenshots of my first completed canvasser. The coding language is HTML. It took me awhile to get this one done from start to finish, but now the last thing I need to do is put it into the Grav site and I will be officially done. After that I will have to make many more! Hopefully in a shorter amount of time with more practice.
I had some free time yesterday to make this guy in Photoshop with the Timeline tool. 🙂
I got the chance to design signage for LAITS Computer Support. Here’s my draft + final based off what was requested. The final sign will be 34″ x 10″ and be placed on their door in Parlin Hall. The font I used, Roboto Condensed, is so geometric. See the way the uppercase S lines up with the top of the lowercase u? Roboto isn’t a bad font but Open Sans will always have my heart for sans-serif body typefaces.
First draft:
Final draft, with larger text to fill up the white space:
Suloni asked if I could make a simple style guide for future signage. This is a rough draft of it. The Computer Support signage is pretty simple so there was no need to make it long. I did want to include examples because I’m a visual learner and I’m sure most design STAs looking at it in the future will be too.
Today was the first day on using Canvasser with the help of Olivia and Valerie who reviewed my psd file. It kept crashing on me when I tired to save things, but eventually it fixed itself and there wasn’t too much trouble. Hopefully I get better at creating these. Learning the ropes here is a lot, and I am thrilled to be learning all these new softwares and developing my skills. In this image are a few buttons that I have now made interactive for a graph in Lab 12.
