STA Blog

My last post

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My last post

I’m really glad that I had the opportunity to be a part of the STA program for 6 months. I’ve gained experience, met new people, and worked on interesting projects. Given everything going on in the world at the time of writing, my daily STA stand-up Zoom meeting was something I very much appreciated, both as a way to see friendly faces and as a kind of stabilizing force in a time which is otherwise quite tumultuous. I’m also grateful that I got to be a part of the environment that Suloni and Valerie have cultivated: through the efforts of these incredible supervisors, I truly felt like I was welcome as an STA, despite the fact that I knew nobody. Stacy too has been an encouraging mentor as I’ve tackled the learning curve of web development, and I’m glad that I could always count on him for guidance and advice. And it would be remiss of me to not mention my fellow STAs who complimented my progress, laughed at my Showcase video, and asked about my cat. Everyone made me feel valued not just as a student employee, but also as a person.

In a couple weeks, I’ll be starting my sophomore year at Rice University in Houston. Although I’m excited about this transition, it is unfortunate that I won’t be able to continue with the STA program for the semesters to come. I wish everyone the best for their time in school and for their future endeavors. Altogether, I sincerely enjoyed my time as an STA, and I hope that I’m able to find something like it in the future.

If you’d like to connect, find me here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/ishan-a-kamat/

Or checkout my personal website here: https://ishankam.at/

IDs, Course Graphic Training, and a Logo (!)

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Hello,

It’s been a while, blog. Since being gone this week, lots has happened, and I thought I’d share my progress here.

Here’s some examples of a few IDs I’ve been assigned this week. There’s something really soothing about editing them, so I can’t say I don’t enjoy processing them. These two were both simple enough, although the first one required some color correction — a balancing act, since while the severely red/warm tones were unflattering, if I made it too cool-toned I ran the risk of washing out her naturally warmer skin tone.

Next, I’ve been working on course graphic training. Between the two styles I dabbled in, I preferred B, and I think it especially turned out nicely for this course, ARH 332K – Northern Renaissance Art 1350-1500, that I am registered to take in the fall (and super excited about). Here’s the design menu I recently produced for it. The background for the images is from Dürer’s print, The Patron Saints of Austria. :^)

Lastly, I just finished my first draft for a new informal logo for a new major (exciting, I know!), Race, Indigeneity, and Migration. The design brief asked for something super simple, and I used the font Josefin Sans for now, but that is subject to change.

Weekly Classical Music Recs

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Weekly Classical Music Recs

I think it’d be nice to start this short weekly post :p. This week I’ve been into Chopin’s Variations on Mozart’s “Là ci darem la mano” from Don Juan. I personally prefer the orchestra / piano version, so I’ve marked that time stamp here!

Cascade Help Request

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Cascade Help Request

A client recently discussed with me the options for a collapsible / accordion FAQs section, since her site has a very long FAQs. She’s been getting away with incorporating anchors, but she’d still prefer an accordion. Tim suggests that something like the Department of Economics site, but it does seem pretty complicated and the client would like to implement it herself. So I’ve written up a simpler version of the accordion in pure HTML / CSS / JS, and it seems to work well.

Here’s my test site: https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/sta-11/ (toggle “Continue” to show / hide the paragraph).

The client said she’ll look into it, give it a try, and let me know if she has any questions!