In my senior year at UT Arlington, I was one of two graphic designers for the Office of the Vice President of Student Affairs (VPSA Office, for short), the office that oversees the 23 departments within UTA's Division of Student Affairs. My role was to create identities and designs for the events and initiatives from the Division of Student Affairs and projects deemed too high-level for the lower departments to handle on their own. Reporting directly to the Director of Communications, I designed many projects seen by tens of thousands of students and faculty across campus and online.
Some of these projects I designed included The Maverick Way, Black History Month, and Maverick Spirit Celebrations: a replacement for Homecoming during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, UTA's traditional Homecoming event could not take place as usual. In lieu of the usual events, the Division of Student Affairs came up with a series of virtual and socially-distanced festivities, called Maverick Spirit Celebrations, since the name "Homecoming" contradicts the message of social distancing. I was challenged to create a design that was different enough but still captured the feel of the original. The logotype is oblique and slanted to the same degree, in keeping with the previous Homecoming branding. The marketing needed to be eye-catching, so I went with a bold geometric design reminiscent of a party environment with moving lights and lasers.
The Maverick Way is a set of six core values that serve as a guideline for being successful and making the most of one's college experience at UTA. It is introduced to every new Maverick at Orientation through a presentation and discussion, and is reinforced through UTA's website and social media presence. I designed the identity, handouts, and presentation template for the Maverick Way visual refresh for the next decade.
These are logo concepts for a new on-campus food pantry run by the Division of Student Affairs. The prompt was to create a logo that was trendy and premium to help remove the stigma around food insecurity. Unfortunately, the name was changed several times during development and at least one more time after I left my position, so these concepts were never used.
Every year, UTA Multicultural Affairs has a new theme for their events surrounding Black History Month. This year's theme was The Black Experience: Past, Present, and Future. The colors and banding was taken from the flag of Ethiopia, a palette and design that has been adopted by several Pan-African groups throughout history.
I was challenged by this project due to how verbose some of the required copy was. Eleven words in a single logo was a first for me, though I managed it well with my choice of typeface, the characterful Trade Gothic. It has both very wide and very narrow fonts, making the copy much more manageable in creating effective layouts.
As part of UTA's efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus on campus, they have offered free testing on campus. I designed an awareness campaign for this endeavor that encourages testing and directs students and faculty to a webpage with more information about how to participate in the program and keep themselves and others safe.
Like many other events in 2021, Parent & Family Weekend went virtual, with the UTA Parent & Family Center conducting festivities and games via video conferencing. Though I did not create the identity for this project, I did overhaul the poster and adapted it to the format of a postcard.
The most fun aspect of my time at the VPSA office was having free reign to design UTA spirit wear as I chose. "Just have fun" was the prompt, and I'm so happy to have made things I'm proud of in my time there. One exception to this was the light blue "Snovid 2021" shirt, which was commissioned to commemorate all the students, faculty, and campus buildings successfully weathering the February 2021 Texas power crisis.
Interested in learning more about my work or how we can collaborate on an upcoming project? Reach out today.
