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STA Blog

(2/3 – 2/7)

March 5, 2025 By Marissa Devivar

Summer Marketing

Spring Texas Parent Ads

Description: Texas Parents newsletter graphic

Inspiration:

Drafts:

Filed Under: Fall 2024 - Spring 2025, We are STAs

January-February

March 3, 2025 By Kyra Lee

Spring 2025 STA Roster Posters

Project Overview: Design 2 posters that display the STAs, their names, the main title, and that differentiate between the teams. The design will be based on “Movie Concession Stands”. The idea is to have the STAs represented as candy boxes/bags of candy.

I started by sketching out some layouts and finding inspiration photos. My initial vision was to have the teams represented by different bars/bags/boxes of candy.

This is the first draft I created in Photoshop following the original design. It was at this point in the project that we decided to pivot on the design to something more illustrative to simplify the layout, fill the empty space, and save time.

I moved to Illustrator to try a new layout, created with the help of my manager De’sha. In this version, each STA would be on their own mini candy box. This way everyone is equally represented and can blend into the packaging more seamlessly.

I designed some simple candy box designs with placeholders for the photos and names, then got to adding all 75 STAs to the document.

With all the STAs in their candy boxes, I could focus on the border and title design. I was directed to make it look more like the display case from my original inspiration pictures. I also added a key beneath the title identifying each of the teams.

I received some more feedback to shorten the title, turn the boxes on their sides, lighten the background, and add some elements to fill the empty space on the bottom shelf.

In another round of feedback I added some effects to the title, removed the border completely, darkened the color of the shelves, and simplified the popcorn to match the stylistic design of the rest of the poster.

In a final round of edits to make the design look more like a concession stand, I added a 3D perspective to the boxes, changed the title font and changed the key design.

My Thoughts: This project was a little bit of a rollercoaster, but I definitely learned a lot. In hindsight, I think I should have pivoted to Illustrator sooner as I spent a lot of time on a draft that ended up being scrapped in the end. Additionally, asking for more help and feedback in the early stages of the project would have saved time and energy fixing things later on.

Overall, I think the posters turned out fun, playful, and very colorful.

2024-25 STA Blog Banner Design

Project Overview: Design a banner that presents all of the STAs and their names to act as the Design/Coding STA Blog header.

This is the background design I created inspired by the UT turtle pond. I drew this in Krita, then transferred it to Illustrator, vectorized it using image trace, and added text.

By the time I went to add the STAs to the image, some new members had joined our team, so I did some rearranging and duplicating of lilypads to fit everyone. Here’s the final product!

Filed Under: Fall 2024 - Spring 2025, We are STAs

Parting Ways with the STA Program

February 12, 2025 By Raaga Srimadh

This semester, I’ll be stepping away from my role as an STA as I take on a new opportunity at an AI-tutoring startup. Being part of the STA Program has been such an enriching experience, and I’m incredibly grateful for everything I’ve learned during my time here.

This past fall, I had the chance to work on our STA Alumni site, Dr Christopher Beevers’ Mood labs site, Dr Elliot Tucker-Drob’s Lifespan Development Lab, as well as Dr Mark Ravina’s Clioviz maps interface. All of which deepened my skills in web design, research, development, and design decision-making. Each project challenged me in new ways and allowed me to grow as a designer and problem-solver.

A huge thank you to my amazing managers, Leilani Cabello and De’sha Bass-McClellan, for their guidance, support, and mentorship. Working with this team has been an absolute joy, and I’ll miss collaborating with my fellow STAs.

I’m excited for this next chapter, but don’t worry, this isn’t goodbye. I’m looking forward to what’s coming up, and I’m hopeful that my path will cross again with the STA Program down the road. It’s been a great experience, and I’m definitely keeping an eye on what’s ahead!

Filed Under: Fall 2024 - Spring 2025, We are STAs

December and January

February 5, 2025 By Lila Mali

Been a while since I’ve updated my blog but there’s been a really big project I’ve been working on since January that I’m excited to talk about!

MSAI Logo and Animation

I was tasked with taking on the MSAI logo creation and animation this month and it actually went in a different direction than I was expecting. Here’s the logo that was finalized.

The animation actually had to go through some iterations. Here was the original concept.

After showing to the PM, we realized that it came across as plants growing from the brain rather than the nodes being stimulated by the brain. After a meeting to discuss a new direction for the animation, here’s what we came up with.

This was actually not only a preferred animation from the client, but it was also a pretty simple animation to complete which I’m really happy about.

DELL IPE Online Course Creation

This project has been quite fun to work on as it emphasizes my focus, character animation!

I’ve been working with Shanda to make animation for Dell’s IPE Online Course where they’ve requested for us to animate specific lecture slides for them. These are essentially medical scenarios they would like animated. This project will most likley last a couple months as they’ve requested 6 animations that span to be 5 – 8 minutes so right now I’ve been focusing on making reusable animation assets that can make our project pipeline faster.

Shanda is the Illustrator on the project and has done wonderful work to make the characters! Here’s the lineup.

With all these characters, here’s some of the animations I made beforehand to prep for the slides.

Since then, I’ve been making an After Effects template that can be used as a master file for all the animations needed.

Those are my main updates for now. Next I wanna finish up the animations assets and make a project tracking sheet for this project for the whole semester.

Filed Under: Fall 2024 - Spring 2025, We are STAs

January Projects

February 4, 2025 By Haley Ma

⋆˚✿˖° January Projects ⋆˚✿˖°

── ⊹ ࣪ ˖♡˖ ࣪ ⊹ ──

Custom Static Stingers

Beginning of this month, I got to assist in some custom static stingers that I assume will be used in an actual classroom! Even though the task was really simple, I was really excited to help create assets alongside a project!

── ⊹ ࣪ ˖♡˖ ࣪ ⊹ ──

Custom Studio Course Graphics

I chose the ART 3800 option in creating the custom studio course graphics and specifically went the cubism movement route in creating the graphics! To be honest, it was a bit of a struggle trying to develop a theme as there was more freedom on my end, but it ended up being good practice in navigating course themes!

── ⊹ ࣪ ˖♡˖ ࣪ ⊹ ──

Basic Training: Shapes and Patterns

The next training checklist I completed was creating basic shapes and patterns in Photoshop. I sound like a broken record but these tasks really help me in becoming familiar with the capabilities of Photoshop! It was really cool that I could create my own palette and create a grid just by pressing a few buttons!

── ⊹ ࣪ ˖♡˖ ࣪ ⊹ ──

2025 Summer Marketing Poster

This project was really fun as it allowed me to work more in Illustrator and get used to developing mockups and test versions for a final draft! First I developed a color palette with the help of Marissa and then decided to use a pale yellow color for an accent color!

After some feedback, we decided with the blue color and keeping more the same color palette! I reformatted the posters with the changes shown in the left and middle posters! Finally we decided to keep the poster in the same tone and lighten the gradient to show the background lines better!

Filed Under: Fall 2024 - Spring 2025, We are STAs

December Projects

February 4, 2025 By Haley Ma

⋆˚✿˖° December Projects ⋆˚✿˖°

── ⊹ ࣪ ˖♡˖ ࣪ ⊹ ──

Learning the Principles and Elements of Design

Another training checklist I completed was understanding the principles and elements of design! l did most of the recreations in Photoshop so it was beneficial in getting myself use to using the software! I remember being really proud that I recreated the Girl Scout logo without using the brush tool!

Filed Under: Fall 2024 - Spring 2025, We are STAs

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