Orientation Virtual Vacation, Image Resource Banner, and Anxiety Clinic

Last week, I worked on a few projects.

For the orientation virtual vacation, I thought I was going to need to do more animation, but another STA from the video department ended up taking most of that along with Miguel. I did help edit and make a few graphic assets, though.  With an original still from the Study Habits video from the winter, I updated the calendar to read October and created a map to replace what was originally a whiteboard. This helped make the video more cohesive with the theme of language and travel. I also created a marquee that flips to read COLA and Now Boarding. Miguel later animated these in After Effects.

I also worked on the edits Suloni suggested for the Copyright Free Image Resources guide. I started off by making this banner, which uses images from Unsplash arranged in a way that is supposed to resemble camera aperture in the center. I’m still working on incorporating imagery into the guide.

Regarding the anxiety clinic project, I am looking through for WordPress Themes that will work for developers . Most of the first few themes I found were a little too business-y in nature, so I have been looking again for some different themes, particularly in the StudioPress premium category, which I just realized LAITS was subscribed to. I was advised to exercise caution since not all of the themes are well constructed or supported. I have been looking at things like ratings, reviews, and downloads to help gauge credibility.

How to Write Project Summaries KB

For this project I was tasked to create a template/instructions/banner for the Project Summaries effort and add it to the KB. In case you might not know what these project summaries are, let me explain. Here at LAITS, project summaries are something we start working on a few weeks before an STA Semester Showcase. During this event we are tasked to summarize the most important projects we’ve worked on during that time. In theory, it is kind of similar to the STA Blog. However, while the Blog works mostly as a storytelling platform, Project Summaries encapsulate the complete journey of a project including the STAs and other team players who took a part into its development, in a complete and presentable way to an audience.

Also, project summaries are divided into two phases; the approval phase and the presentation phase. Both of these are better explained in the final KB I made.

In relation to other KB’s I’ve made, this one was relatively a short an easy project. I was assigned an STA to provide feedback for me, and so they did. But from start to finish including drafting, initial feedback, the banner creation and feedback, and the final KB development, the project lasted about 2 days to complete. (My personal record..? Maybe?) Anyway, I’m proud of this project and I hope it gets to help all STA’s in the future.

Finally, here’s the link to the KB: http://sites.la.utexas.edu/kb/2021/06/02/how-to-write-project-summaries/

Lesson 7: Logos Update

If you’ve been thoroughly following this blog you might remember that throughout the semester I worked on the Concepting and Sketching section of Lesson 7 on Logos.

As a general reminder: the purpose of this Lesson creation project is to make a bunch of whole new lessons and tutorial specifically on different topics future STAs will learn from and use as reference when getting to work on these projects. As you can see, this is the lesson 7 out of 9 or 10 that will be part of the new STA curriculum, and Lesson 7 is all about logos.

On the last post I made on this topic I mentioned that we were still in need of feedback and yet to draft the KB. Well, since then we got a bunch of really helpful feedback and suggestions to add into the KB (mainly refining references to the original KB we incorporated and expanded upon in this new KB). And so, I got to write out the official KB! Here’s the link to that: http://sites.la.utexas.edu/kb/2021/05/25/7-logo-concepting-sketching/

We are yet to go through the feedback and test run rounds, so everything is still subject to change. Also, my partner for this project won’t be working at LAITS during the summer as I am, so I’ll be taking the lead on this project for the time being. I’ll keep you updated on what’s to come!

Design Fundamentals – Feedback Rounds & Summer 2021 A-Frame Design

Hello 🙂 I’m back for the summer! I returned yesterday and am already getting back into the swing of things with a redraw of my winter break “Hookem” Illustration, this time created in Illustrator for Summer 2021 marketing. I’ve also been keeping track of feedback for the new Design Fundamentals training assignments with Maddy, as well as providing feedback on some of the new pieces of training myself.

I look forward to joining my fellow STAs on many upcoming projects in the following weeks. I’ve heard snippets of all the assignments going on right now and WOW; the work accomplished by the Design and Coding team never ceases to impress me. Anyways, here is the illustration that I mentioned earlier. The typography has since been fixed, and it’ll be very neat to see this printed in real life someday.

Summer 2022 A-Frame Bevo

And a BONUS! Here is a compilation of some work I’ve done in the process of providing feedback on the new developmental training. This is from Sheryl’s “Photography: Photo Sourcing and Color Grading- feedback and test run.” I’ve also started De’sha’s “Branding: Iconography” and Cristina’s “Logo: Logo Design” but have only given written feedback so far; I will be starting their respective activities soon!

The Color Match Tool

Final Matching

Lesson 5: Color Update Pt.2

So, you might remember a while ago I made a Color Theory KB. If not, this image and link might remind you of it: http://sites.la.utexas.edu/kb/2021/04/08/5-color-color-theory/

Well, recently it went through two different rounds of feedback and I’ve made quite a few changes since I last worked on it, such as:

• Overall made things less wordy/professional (specially in the first information sections of the training)
• Added more noticeable headings and subheadings (like in the Primary/Secondary/Tertiary colors section)
• Switched around the terms tint/tone/shade in the text to match the order in the example graphic. Also, added a more detailed explanation as to how adding these to a hue works, and added the images Abriella provided for values
• Made the images in the Psychology of Colors section larger and more readable
• Edited the image in the monochromatic color scheme section to be a clearer example
• Added the game Abriella linked: https://color.method.ac/
• Fixed the Fun Fact text box that was previously cut off (the problem was  the size of the image)
• Changed the second “color” in the following sentence to “hue,” as suggested: ‘Black, white, and gray are known as achromatic colors because they lack color to them.’
• Expanded on the general applications of each color wheel and added short blurb on RGB vs CMYK with screenshots of how to make a doc CMYK vs RGB in photoshop and Illustrator. (Also added the link to an additional source.)
• Replace all direct URL texts with the name of the article and website

So, feel free to check it out again and appreciate the many changes I’ve done 🙂