As the title says we are scanning at the office. Ingrid and I. It is nice to be working outside the house. Though there was so much stuff to move around and needing to ask for a lot of help with things because we couldn’t find stuff or access was restricted to things. Alas, we got the images scanned anyways in a single shift so it all worked out. (:
Hi y’all! I recently noticed that I am just a few days away from my 200th day of work! So definitively tune in because next post, will be dedicated to that…
Moving on, today I wanted to talk about the portfolio tips Maddy and Valerie gave us on this past Fun Times Tuesdays meeting. I already have a portfolio of my own in development since last summer, but it is definitively not a polished gem and still needs so much more time and attention. But I am done with my summer class now, so I should have plenty of time to dedicate to this matter. This meeting could not have come at a better time!
The first thing they talked about in the meeting was the different site builders there are. But, on that matter I am already biased in favor of Wix, since it’s a site I’ve learned to work on since I was in the 6th grade. (Fun fact: the first page I ever built was a site on Koalas, the different types there are, and stuff like that. Sadly, I can’t link it due to the fact that it was built with Flash and has since disappeared.) I don’t have the premium version, though. But I think that’s probably going to be something worth getting to upgrade my site. I don’t know much about the benefits yet, but I know it allows you to add a favicon, and ever since I learned what they were working as an STA, now I really want to make one for myself.
Moving on, they talked about owning a domain for your portfolio, which is something I definitively need to get. Right now, my portfolio is linked as cvn2010.wixsite.com/portfolio, which is not only a really long title that’s hard to remember, the “wixsite” kind of takes away some of the professionalism out of it. Also, they said Google Domains is a great and cheaper way to purchase domains compared to GoDaddy. So that’s what I’ll be using.
Concerning, what goes into the portfolio, I’m glad to say I’m already good on the One-Off’s department, since I have a bunch of different mockups I’ve done for my advertising classes in the past. However, I need to do better on the Case Study department. The thing is, I have the content for that (also from my advertising classes), but it’s not something I’ve added into my portfolio just yet.
Considering the general formatting of my portfolio, that’s something that’s always concerned me since I started it, because, as of right now, I don’t think it looks very professional and I also don’t think I’m taking advantage of the space, either. Right now, it the main page looks like this (the background image is a gif, though, I really like that):
(It’s the logo from the Logo Design KB for me…)
Also, as you might have noticed, I have also not added a freelancing tab yet. But to be honest, I’m going to wait till this week’s Fun Times Tuesday meeting to even consider that. As of right now I wouldn’t really know how to approach that topic.
Anyway, the final piece of advise I wanted to talk about was something I specifically asked for: would it be better to have more pages with less content or less pages with more content? The answer was pretty much, it depends. But, upon further elaboration Maddy and Valerie helped me realize that overall I just (personally) need to have less content on display on my site. It’s not about the quantity of content you put out, but the quality of it, and I definitively have projects I’m not necessarily proud of on display in my portfolio… I’ll have to change that.
All in all, I really learned a lot from this presentation and I’m glad we had the time and opportunity to talk about that. Maddy, Valerie, if you are reading this, thank you very much, and stay tuned for my updated portfolio (coming soon to a theater near you)…
This past week was more consolidated because I spent the beginning of the week on vacation, but when I came back I started working on recreating some Figma pages Maddy had mocked up using Gantry 5 on Grav. Gantry 5 is the block editor that I mentioned in last week’s post. It allows for easier website creation for those who do not have as much experience with web development / coding (me). De’She and I were both working on this task, but I have continued to have issues getting Grav to work through both the local host and a sandbox that Ruben had set up. However, there was a brief window of time where I was able to start building the website. I was pretty confused by basic changes, but we had a long working meeting with Ruben and Maddy where we asked our questions. The main thing that helped me was working through some of the custom CSS tasks and developing a workflow for the custom CSS. This workflow would look something like identifying the visual element needed –> inspecting the element on the non-admin view –> looking at the Figma for dimensions/details –> testing changes in that inspect window –> adding the changes using the custom CSS tool in the Page Settings part of Gantry 5. Unfortunately, the challenges are still continuing as I cannot see the non-admin view anymore for some reason. Hopefully, it will be okay, but if not, I may need to not work on this project anymore.
Even though there isn’t much to show graphically, the content transfer project from OCILL to Canvas for Intensive Turkish 1 and 2 is well underway and making great progress. As of today, we have transferred content fully from the first course and most of the exercises have been approved by the client.
Some takeaways I’ve learned from this project as I hand it off to Poonum and Angie:
After some feedback from the client, I created a semi-final set of graphics using a specific background image and text box color:
Even though I wasn’t able to work on this as much as I would’ve liked given that OCILL took more of my time, I really enjoyed going back to Cascade and thinking about how the Web Development Services site for COLA could be redesigned to be more helpful, intuitive and straightforward.
To start, I created a set of four buttons that would act as links to an appropriate help email address. The idea was to design these as simple and straightforward as possible, while still looking consistent with the COLA website style. Consequently, I created minimal monochromatic buttons using UT’s grey and white and Roboto Condensed, the same font used in the COLA websites. Below are examples of how these look:
Moreover, I’ve also been looking into the design of the banner for this site. I’ve been using images like the ones below to get ideas as to how can Web Development Services be expressed visually:
As of right now, I have been looking into a similar design that also uses UT’s grey and white (to match the buttons) and Roboto Condensed. So far, I’ve only done two design iterations but I am sure another STA can do much more with these to fully convey what Web Development Services entails in LAITS. Here are my designs:
Finally, the below image is a mockup of how the website could look with the items I’ve designed so far:
Dear Design STA Team,
As my STA appointment comes to an end, I would like to express how grateful and satisfied I am to have worked with such an incredible group of designers, developers, and most importantly, people. Through my experience with LAITS, I am confident to say that I have gained an invaluable set of skills (both soft and hard) that I know I will use and keep improving for the rest of my professional life. Working as an STA was the best thing that could’ve happened to me as someone who is always looking to try new things and work in engaging projects from their inception through completion. It is especially satisfying to see stuff I’ve been involved in around campus, go LAITS!
To Suloni, Valerie, and Maddy, thank you so much for being such a helpful, inclusive, and supporting group of supervisors. It is very refreshing to work for people who see you eye to eye and are very easy to talk to about anything ranging from the dumbest questions about logging into Cascade all the way to cool facts about boba drinks.
To the rest of the STAs, I consider myself lucky to have worked along with such an awesome group of people from such different backgrounds and ways of thinking. You all have taught me things about design and life that I would’ve never thought I would learn in a part-time student job. I am sure that you will all be very successful in your career paths and I can’t wait to see what you end up doing later on.
I hope to visit you all in person soon and keep in touch through social media or on campus.
Thank you again for everything,
Miguel Yapur
This week, I spent the majority of my work time on OCILL. I’m attaching a screenshot of some of my work.
I’m also going to be helping Abriella with a scanning project early next week.
Also! Going to Boston, Portland (ME), and Burlington next week, so stay tuned for some highlights on the blog in the coming weeks. :^)
Week of June 28 – July 2
The OCIL grind continues! Therefore, I don’t have much to show (visually) for this blog update. Poonum and I tested the formatting and functionality of Canvas quizzes, and the team has been making good progress. In fact, we have currently transferred 8 weeks’ worth of content for Intensive Turkish I! Dr. Okur is also about to return from vacation so we should be getting pages approved soon. Outside of Turkish, I worked a bit on both feedback rounds and the animation project.
Week of July 5 – July 9
OCIL update again; all pages of Intensive Turkish I are now on Canvas! Poonum, Miguel, and I met with Dr. Okur on Tuesday to work out all the questions that we had regarding formatting. So I have been going back through pages and quizzes this week to revise them for final approval. I also redid Ingrid’s Shape and Pattern activity III on Shape Hierarchy which I have shown below.
This week is also exciting as it marks my one-year anniversary of working here at LAITS! It doesn’t feel like so much time has passed, but looking back I have come so far. It has been lovely getting to know all my amazing coworkers, and it will be very sad when I graduate from this orange cow school and thus this program.
Shape and Pattern
