University of Advancing Technology (UAT) has been ranked the #1 college in Arizona for Design by NICHE in 2025. Niche provides in-depth rankings, reviews, and data on universities and colleges across  the United States.

Not only did UAT rank #1 in Arizona for Design, but ranks in the top 50 in America, coming in at #43. This achievement is a testament to UAT's dedication to creation and innovation, as well as the outstanding industry expert faculty who teach in this field. UAT offers a few Design degrees including:

Advertising Art (AA): UAT's AA degree develops students' artistic skills and provides hands-on experience in advertising and design. Students learn to translate ideas through concept, design, and production using advanced creative tools. This degree covers the history and evolution of advertising and includes training in visual design, photography, drawing, and digital media. Graduates are prepared for careers in digital marketing and graphic design, helping organizations with customer acquisition and retention.

Game Art & Animation (GAA): The GAA degree at UAT equips students with the skills to create 2D and 3D art and animation for various gaming platforms, including PC, console, mobile, and Virtual Reality (VR). Students learn artistic principles like color theory, lighting, anatomy, and scene staging while mastering modeling, texturing, rigging, and motion capture. Graduates are prepared for careers as character artists, animators, texture artists, and digital modelers in the game industry.

Game Design (GD): GD at UAT equips students with skills in game mechanics, prototyping, and industry tools. It emphasizes design, storytelling, user experience, and multi-platform gameplay, preparing students for industry leadership and innovation. Graduates are ready to conquer and innovate the game industry.

Information: Is It Reliable?

Information is not difficult to find. Search engines utilize web databases, reviewers’ blogs and RSS feeds. Practicing research techniques that help you become adept at locating the information you need is easy. But how do you know if the information is accurate or relevant?

So, we need an understanding of the diversity of information sources, which are largely developed through varied beliefs and influenced by social interactions.

To simplify, the information sources must be evidence-based science, innovative technological facts, non-biased ethical standards, and stem from global mindfulness. Below is a list of 5 ways to determine if the information you are gathering is reliable and timely.

1. Examine Sources

• Issue: Where are people getting their information?
• Solution: Use only credible sources

2. Reliable Tech Innovation

• Issue: Are splash page reporting on emerging technologies really in the marketplace?
• Solution: Investigate if the technological innovations are actual or theoretical.

3. Evidence-based Science

• Issue: Are the scientific discoveries evidenced or advertising gimmicks?
• Solution: Investigate if the scientists have published their research findings in credible publications.  Anyone can make a claim.

4. Original Ideas and Experience

• Issue: Accountability in using other’s ideas for your projects.
• Solution: Build upon original works and give credit to the originator and go out in the real world and experience your ideas first hand.

5. Invention

• Issue: Invention is an engineering solution and must be novel and reliable.
• Solution: Invention is a term that is both practical and conceptual. An inventor can be the originator and/or an innovator. Innovators build off what is already in the marketplace. Inventive leaders think about and adopt reliable and lasting solutions, until a new solution comes about.

The above five bullet points are tenets I apply in my own research and teaching.  In fact, information gathering and assimilating has become a bit of “telephone tag.” To resolve this, be proactive in obtaining information from reliable sources and pass them on with credit to the originators.

Here are a few facts that might cause all of us to pause: “According to the poll, conducted by Don Bates of The George Washington University:

• “89 percent of reporters and editors turn to blogs for story research”
• “65 percent look to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn”
• “52 percent use microblogging sites like Twitter”
• “61 percent use Wikipedia.” (Adler, n.d.).

Is Bates’ information reliable? To find out, I would need to go directly to GWU and look for scholarly articles written or published by Bates. I did and it was. But this is only the first step because the second step would be to find other statistics on the same topic from other sources to compare.

In the end, the onus is on us to do our own due diligence and get the facts straight! Difficult? Not too much. It can be a fun challenge.

Last semester, Audra Jackson (Advertising Art) was helping her boyfriend and his roommates rearrange their furniture through the use of digital graphing. This sparked an idea — what if there was a service that allowed people to see their room rearranged without actually moving their furniture? Thus, Easy Rearranging was born.

Easy Rearranging is an interior design company and app that provides digital layouts of arrangement possibilities for any space, enabling users with a way to rearrange their furniture in less time. The app is designed to allow users to send in the measurements of their room(s) and furniture and Easy Rearranging will create the layout and arrangement possibilities for just a small cost.

Easy Rearranging is dedicated to providing the best options to fit users’ needs, and can create layouts that may include getting new furniture or getting rid of an old piece, and can also provide layouts that bring everything closer or even create a more inviting space for large family gatherings.

How it Works

When opening the Easy Rearranging app for the first time, users sign in to their account through Facebook, Google or with an email and password. Once logged in, the homepage provides an example of furniture rearrangement after a remodel. The ‘pricing’ page details the cost of layouts provided based on the number of furniture items being moved. The ‘about’ page provides a description of what Easy Rearranging is and the services provided with contact information included at the bottom of the page.

The ‘measurements’ and ‘info’ pages enable users to fill out their personal information, measurements of furniture and reason for rearranging, as well as the option to attach images. Once a user submits this, a form is sent to the team email and the user receives an automatic inquiry email letting them know their request was received.

After the request is reviewed, the user will receive an estimate for the cost of digital layouts. Once the payment is received, the user receives a confirmation email with a timeframe for completion and delivery of the layouts. Finally, the user receives an email with the digital layouts attached. Users are encouraged to respond to the email if they have any questions or concerns.

Discover your opportunities to create with UAT’s Advertising Art degree.

Earlier this year, Aubrey Dahl (Advertising Art) was hired to host a painting-themed party for a group of eight-year-old girls. She prepared canvases with art for the girls to paint. While the girls were painting, Aubrey asked them questions about the colors they were using and mixing. Unsurprisingly, there were some aspects to color and color traits they weren’t familiar with but once Aubrey explained basic color theory concepts, they were able to comprehend.

This made Aubrey question why they weren’t familiar with this material in the first place and why it isn’t taught to more of an extent, as children are receptive to art, especially color. Being a visual medium, using gamification to learn about color and color theory can be enriching at a young age, especially when many children lose their love for art early on.

While digging deeper, Aubrey discovered many educational games for math, science, reading, foreign languages … but nothing extensive in the area of art and color. That’s why Aubrey created Reach My Rainbow Learning About Color.

Reach My Rainbow is an educational color and color theory game geared toward children and intended to be used in elementary art classes. The game includes 10 levels that teach different aspects of art, structured with a lesson, activity and reward.

Reach My Rainbow Levels

Level 1: Primary Colors

Level 2: Secondary Colors and Mixing Colors

Level 3: Tertiary Colors

Level 4: Value and Monochromatic Color Scheme

Level 5: Analogous Color Scheme

Level 6: Complementary Color Scheme

Level 7: Neutral Tones and Brown

Level 8: Warm and Cool Colors

Level 9: Create a Color Palette

Level 10: Put it All Together

The lessons teach concepts, and the activities allow children to test the concepts they just learned. Each level ends with a reward coloring page, where children use what they’ve just learned to color their own picture. The game has visual, auditory, and kinesthetic aspects to enhance learning and stimulate the senses.

The art design and visuals in the game are meant to be simple yet cute, appealing to children.

Aubrey is excited to get Reach My Rainbow into classrooms by licensing it to elementary schools, stating, “it can help save money and still be fun because they can say, ‘we’re going to art class now, go to the computers.’” In future iterations, Aubrey is interested in making lessons to be more in-depth, and possibly expand to include middle and high school versions.

Discover your inner artist with one of UAT’s digital arts degrees.

Team:

Aubrey Dahl

Advertising Art

Contributions by:

Amanda Grose, Robotics & Embedded Systems

John Leddon, Advertising Art

Alexis Serpas, Network Security

Jaime Zamora, Virtual Reality

Chirstopher Parness, Digital Video

Jonathon Sherwood, Game Design

At UAT, we’re proud to share stories of exceptional tech entrepreneurs, and this month we’re focusing on digital marketing. And in addition, since February is Black History Month, we feel it’s important to highlight black owned technology businesses.

We talked with Aimee Parker and Justin Croxton, entrepreneurs who have created successful businesses in this field, to find out more about what the digital marketing industry is like, what their personal experiences have been, and what advice they have for students pursuing this field. Their answers are insightful and encouraging; read on to be inspired!

Meet Aimee and Justin. Aimee is the Founder and Owner of her Digital Marketing Firm, Precision Media & Designs, based in Phoenix, Arizona. Justin is a Managing Partner at digital marketing and media solutions provider Propellant Media based in Atlanta, Georgia. We asked them seven questions about their careers and companies…

How did you get start started in digital marketing, and what made you decide to start your own business?

Aimee: I got started right after college. I majored in marketing because I wanted to be able to pour back into my family who had dreams of becoming business owners. A week after I graduated college, I landed my first marketing position at a traditional marketing firm and realized that they did not focus on digital at all. I took an initiative to start a digital marketing department at the company that took off and skyrocketed, and I haven't looked back since.

Justin: I was leveraging digital marketing for class A office commercial real estate investors when I worked for Jones Lang LaSalle as a Vice President in 2010. I was fascinated with the ease in marketing with email and Google Adwords. You can have a client anywhere in the world and still work from home. I left commercial real estate to go to business school (NYU Stern School of Business) in New York. I saw what many of my classmates were doing hustling to get internships in banking and consulting and I knew based on what I did around digital marketing, it was the space I wanted to be in long term. So I started my own consulting practice (Que Commerce) as an internship for myself in 2012, landing a few clients, and then continued with Que Commerce after graduating. Then in 2014, when I moved back to Atlanta, I formed Propellant Media with a group of guys. The rest is history.

What is the most difficult part of owning your own agency?

Aimee: I think the most difficult for me is making sure you continue to hold the client accountable without being overbearing. For instance, I always tell my clients, I can get you noticed, I can drive traffic, I can get you leads, but it is up to you to do the work within your own company, to have great strategies, sales processes, and systems in places to be able to make sure these clients become loyal to your business.

Justin: Grooming talent and staying focused on your core offerings. The people and our team we have are amazing. But trying to figure out how best to groom the team can be difficult. For example, should everyone be focused on executing Facebook AND Google Adwords campaigns, or should they be focused on one channel. Should we as an agency only focus on geofencing marketing or provide more services that can impact client growth revenue and customer acquisition. These decisions have been tough, but also lended themselves to serious growth for us as we still differentiate our firm with geofencing, OTT Advertising, and programmatic offerings, while providing omni-channel and data marketing tools to help enterprises grow.

What inspires you?

Aimee: My parents inspire me. They both quit their full-time jobs where they were very comfortable to follow their dreams as business owners. They are grinding it out every day and have had so much success in such a short amount of time that it pushes me to continue to run full force after my own dreams.

Justin: My faith and my family. They give me strength every day and my hope is I can leave a legacy for the generations after me.

What are the skills (either technical or soft skills) people need to be successful in a digital marketing career?

Aimee: You have to be really good with numbers and data. I would say that is the most important. You need to be able to look at a chart that holds things like Cost Per Result, Impressions, Reach, etc and understand what that means for the business and whether or not you need to shift your efforts.  

You also need to be very flexible because in digital marketing, what works today may not work tomorrow and what works tomorrow may not have worked yesterday. It is ever-changing so you have to be able to dive in, and figure out the changes in a matter of a few hours or it could be detrimental to your campaign.

Justin: Patience and an openness to learn. So many skills you can gain in this space, and many times we see kids come out that want to do so much. My advice to them is to become an expert in one thing, then move on to another and then another. Our goal at Propellant Media is to groom well-rounded marketing professionals who can exude confidence and furnish well rounded insights for clients. But you have to be patient and start with 1 or 2 digital channels first.

How do you feel digital marketing will continue to evolve?

Aimee: We are going to see more and more platforms pop up that you can market on and marketers themselves will have to be able to evolve themselves to be able to learn and pickup on things quickly. It is already happening but, we will see traditional marketing start to die and all things will be digital. It will become more complex and more expensive to market digitally, especially in the paid space but, that is where your expertise will come into play to make it work.​​

Justin: Data will continue to be the leading indicator for brands that focus on digital marketing. But with Apple IOS updates and privacy laws, it will likely become slightly more difficult to discern ROI and what’s working.  Brands will continue to demand more data to make marketing-based decisions, but that data will become more difficult to come by as a result of privacy concerns around the world. So there will be a balance, but digital marketing is here to stay will you will see more brand still divert more dollars to digital, because that is where most consumers are spending their time AND it’s still more trackable compared to traditional media.    

What are some prevalent challenges you have faced as a minority in the technological field?

Aimee: I have had so many. I have never in my career worked alongside another black woman in this field. I've worked with maybe 1-2 black men but NEVER a black woman and so oftentimes, I found myself being cut off in the middle of meetings, being ignored, and I have also endured my peers not believing in my ability. I can recall a particular company that hired me to lead digital marketing and never allowed me to lead. They would always suggest that someone looked over my work and questioned my ability. It's been tough but it never discouraged me because I had a greater goal in mind.

​Justin: Frankly, it’s been access and just giving us a shot. We received the Inc 5000 Fastest growing companies award in 2020 and was number 78 on the list of 5000.  And many times, whether it’s internal bias, a less-than proactive nature by companies to hire diverse firms, or simply the ease to work with people you know, we at Propellant Media simply want to be given a shot. We put our team against anyone. We are driving cost per leads at $5.00 of good quality for academic institutions let alone other industries. We offer great omni-channel reporting and put together comprehensive digital plans that work. I can talk about these accolades and accomplishments all day. But the progress won’t be as speedy until more directors of marketing and CEOs of companies show an appreciation for diverse marketing vendors and consider how diverse marketing firms like Propellant Media can impact growth within their enterprises.

What kind of progressions would you like to see happen for Black people in your field?

Aimee: I would love to see more black women in this field. I find it hard to connect with other black women with whom I can just really talk about SEO, SEM, paid social ads etc. It is very rare. I would like to see more black people in leadership for this field and I would love if companies became intentional in hiring blacks and trusting that they know what they are doing and not second guess them. That is my hope for the future. I want to see more of ME!

Justin: I would like to see more African Americans in leadership positions as well as more diverse owned vendors be utilized by larger enterprises. It starts with an internal change in the philosophy of hiring by senior leadership. And then there is having data that tracks hiring and utilizing diverse owned firms.

Here’s another way to look at it. We’ve worked with organizations in which their customer base is 50% minority, and yet their marketing team of 15 has only 1 minority employee. How can marketing decision and creative ads speak to your diverse customer base if you don’t have people who understand the culture, nuances of the culture, and background of your audience?  That sense and appreciation for diversity will only fuel growth within their enterprises.

Thank you to Aimee and Justin for sharing, and we wish them continued success! If you're interested in studying digital marketing, UAT has several options for degree paths in digital arts. Take the first step... apply now at https://uatfastapp.com. 

And read on to find out more about our programs. 

Digital Marketing:

UAT's Digital Marketing bachelor’s degree program has a career-focused curriculum providing students with the skills, experience, and portfolio that hiring organizations are seeking. UAT students will learn digital advertising, search engine optimization, mobile marketing, how to create engaging content utilizing emerging platforms, and more.

https://www.uat.edu/digital-marketing-degree

Advertising Art:

Degree seeking students will learn about the history and evolution of advertising as it relates to art, and create in mediums including visual design, photography, drawing, and digital media art within a working agency environment.

https://www.uat.edu/advertising-art-degree 

Digital Video:

UAT’s digital video courses combine the fundamentals of digital filmmaking technologies with artistic production to create an advanced degree for students wanting to launch a career in digital filmmaking and video production.

https://www.uat.edu/digital-video-degree  

Day one of the beginner drawing class starts with students exploring many types of traditional media. Getting comfortable with Conte crayon, various types of charcoal and art pencils is their first assignment. The drawing class guides students through an introduction to the hardness scale for art pencils and a tutorial on how different hardness levels of graphite react to erasing and blending. The goal of this class exercise is to introduce students to manipulating foreign media. We can’t wait to see the art they create!

Check out the art degrees UAT offers.

UAT offers more cool courses! Students are also excited for React Native, where they will learn and explore the future of mobile development. React Native helps users create real and exciting mobile apps with the help of JavaScript, which is supported by both Android and iOS platforms. By the end of the course, students will have created an app!

To prepare for a life of creating technologies, UAT students use agile approaches, including scrum, as the backbone of essentially all of their project development activities. Agile Technology instructs students in agile methodologies, terminologies and roles. Students will practice agile within this course to prepare them for team projects throughout their time at UAT and in their careers after graduation.

In the popular course, Writing for Interactive Games, students learn native design by defining the character, the world and the events of the game. Security + Certification class teaches students to identify and address security threats, attacks and vulnerabilities. This year, students are most excited for AST101 The Night Sky, AST301 The Solar System, GAM352 Game Systems Design and VRT330 Augmented Reality Development.

We have classes to tickle every technology fancy! Whether you’re interested in Game Art and Animation, Network Engineering or Virtual Reality, our degrees are made up of the coolest courses.

The U.S. Census Bureau is preparing for the 2020 Count, and the City of Tempe is joining their efforts to spread awareness and highlight its importance. On Friday, Nov. 15, student creatives and community storytellers met at the Tempe History Museum for Tempe Creatives for the Count, a collaborative event held to brainstorm and design digital content and messaging that will spread awareness about the 2020 census. 

But why is next year’s count so important? 

The census helps determine how more than $700 billion dollars in federal funds are allocated, among many other important decisions made for the next decade. “The Arizona population is growing,” noted Dr. Dave Bolman, UAT Provost and Chief Academic Officer, “so the state is being very aware of accurate census counts for funding, extra seats in the house, and everything else related. We’re a growing state, and we want to make sure to capture that,” he said. 

Tempe Creatives for the Count challenged attendees to help make this message clear and noticeable. With prizes for the best ideas, Professors Mark Smith and Dapzury Valenzuela took eight UAT students to participate in the ideation and execution of digital art. Professor Valenzuela said that the event was a great success, stating that the students shared their talent for a good and worthy cause. “This community-based event allowed our students to not only create digital assets, but make connections with other local students and citizens in a joint effort to bring awareness to the U.S. Census,” she said. “They had fun and the wins were an added bonus!” 

UAT students Addison Buettner, Tucker Baskit, and Bryan Block placed first, Jacquelynne Heiman was on the second place team, and Daniel McWhorter was on the third place team. Kyle Davis, Christopher Elliot, and Desiree Macias were also valuable student participants.  

New to UAT, students interested in learning more about design for the advertising industry can study for an Advertising Art Degree. This degree allows students to blend their art skills with marketing to create compelling ads that motivate consumers. UAT teaches students how to use the most advanced production tools and how to apply design and advertising to new technology.

Find out more at https://www.uat.edu/advertising-art-degree. 

Navigating Instagram in the 21st century with all of the rinstas, finstas, flop accounts, "models" and crazy comments can be tough. But Instagram can be an incredibly helpful tool when building your personal brand, growing your business or job hunting.

Instagram started out in 2010, it was released on October 6th. Back when Instagram was first created, people would upload blurry, dark or random objects with no rhyme or reason. The captions were terrible, and of course, filled with a bunch of hashtags. Those days are long gone. If you are caught using Instagram like we were in 2010, you’d probably be banned. Just kidding, but seriously.

In 2019, Instagram is basically like a Linkedin, but for the arts and photography. Instagram is a creative marketing way to get attention from brands and build your fan base. Lots of Instagramers have professional pages, where they make money for just posting a picture of themselves looking good, hence the “Instagram model.” The Instagram model is a girl or boy who regularly posts beautiful pictures of themselves. Most Instagram models will also state in their bio that they’re an Instagram model. It may sound ridiculous, but it’s a thing. Companies and brands that sell luxury hotel rooms to designer shoes and purses pay Instagram models to help them sell their products or services. It can be very lucrative for the model.

Instagram Model @lisamarie_schiffner

Then, you have your Instagram Youtubers. Instagram Youtubers are very popular on Instagram, which is usually every Youtubers favorite app. Some Youtubers even use Instagram to kick off their careers. Some Youtubers killing it on Instagram include Casey Neistat, Lilly Singh and Grayson Dolan.

To order to gain any traction on Instagram, you must have the perfect bio and the perfect feed. Your bio should include all your skills or titles, such as model, photographer, youtuber, etc. And don’t forget to link to your website! Your feed should be the same color grade, and your pictures should all be your best photos. Be sure to post often to get the best engagement on your profile. According to ExpertVoice, some of the best times to post on Instagram to maximize engagement include Sunday at 5 p.m., Monday at 7 p.m., Thursday at 7 a.m. and Saturday at 12 a.m.

Ready to revamp your Instagram? Archive any pictures that you don’t like or want anyone to see. For example, if you posted a bad selfie or didn't quite figure out the color grade, you can simply archive old posts to hide them from your feed. Now, post three blank white or any three solid color pictures on your feed. This is how you start a new “Insta theme.” Once you’ve posted your blank transition pictures, find your preset. A preset is a set or adjust—a value that controls the operation of a device—in advance of its use. Your new feed needs to match, so you want to pick your favorite preset to use on all your pictures. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to post the best pictures of yourself, or better yet, go take a photoshoot with your best friend and get some new Instagram model worthy pictures.

Lastly, were going to get serious. You can really grow a brand for yourself through Instagram. Using the right hashtags—but not too many!—following the right people and gaining followers can really help you in your journey. "Comments are rivaling Instagram feeds and Stories for importance," UAT Social Media Manager Ashley Murry said. "You can use the comments section to ask questions that spark engagement, make customers feel special or add authenticity to your brand voice," Ashley added.

If you haven't started using Instagram Stories, you should get on that ASAP. More than 300 million people watch Instagram Stories every day! They have become so popular that they blew snapchat out of the race. Many young people, including myself, have ditched Snapchat and went straight for Instagram Stories. Instagram stories are a great way to reach and engage with your followers. Interactive influencers create the best engagement because they’re giving their followers what they want, recognition!

Companies look for influencers every day to showcase their new products, but they’re specifically looking for influencers with high amounts of followers and engagement. Using the correct hashtags and gaining followers can get you there. One way to find the right hashtags is to simply search what hashtag is trending at the moment.

Now you are all set to launch your new Instagram like a professional Instagrammer. Most importantly, have fun with it and get those brand deals, girl!

Want to learn how to produce high-quality, professional photos and videos for social media like me? Check out UAT's Digital Video degree program today!

John Goodall arrived at UAT like many freshmen, with a very specific career goal of becoming a 2D concept artist. Then he discovered 3D art. “I realized that was my home,” John said. “A lot of the pipelines for 3D art are the same or similar to real-time and pre-rendered projects,” he added.

While John mastered design software such as Max, Maya, ZBrush, Substance Designer and Substance Painter in his classes, he started working toward a career as a video game artist. He created 3D environments, props and characters for the UAT homegrown indie studio Opera Skunk, and he even worked as a game art tutor.

But now John is more likely to make 3D “art” for architects than gamers. As a 3D artist on the architectural visualizations team at Point in Time Studios, John is currently working on interior renderings for a student housing project. He creates models based on furniture and architectural references to bring the client’s vision to life.

Point in Time Studios Student Housing Demo Reel

John credits his post-graduation success to rigorous research and rockstar professors (and a little bit of luck and persistence). Before interviews, John visits the company’s website to make sure the mission aligns with his professional goals and ideals. He also researches their current projects and practices interview questions. “It feels great when they ask you a question that you’ve practiced!”

The curriculum and group projects prepared John for his career, but his teachers inspired him inside and outside of the classroom. “Lynn, Jorge and Matt are amazing people. They want to help their students succeed and be the best that they can be at what they do. I can’t thank them enough for what they’ve done for me,” John said.

Most of John’s memories of UAT are happy ones, but he does recall feeling a little stressed out at times. “School is important, but don’t be afraid to have fun at the same time. Life is all about balance,” he said. Following a schedule and taking breaks helped him stay on track.

“Just roll with the punches and don’t be afraid to adapt to what life throws at you. It might be your next big opportunity.”

Do you want to study 3D design and jumpstart an exciting career like John? Check out our Art & Animation degree program today!

In the tech world, UX designers are known as unicorns. They possess that elusive combination of visual design chops and technical skills. None of them grew up wanting to be a UX designer. Their job descriptions are all over the place, and companies can’t decide what to do with them. (So, they end up doing a little bit of everything.) UAT alumnus Brady Vontran’s path to UX design has been pretty typical because it has been atypical.

When Brady arrived at UAT, he wanted to be a graphic designer. “It was a super vague goal, but at least I had a direction,” he said. He spent most of his time at UAT studying design thinking, making logos and collaborating with his peers whose passion for design inspired him.

“In college, the path seemed really clear: Do well in school, finish your degree and get a job. The path to achieve it was really well laid out with lots of people ready to help you on the journey,” Brady remembered. “But life after college is very open ended with endless paths and journeys to pursue,” he added.

Brady forged his own path as a freelancer, designing print ads, brochures and posters for clients on tight deadlines. He honed his HTML skills and began working on web design projects too. He taught himself Javascript and built up his portfolio. He did some WordPress work for oil refineries and a nonprofit.

During this time, Brady also volunteered as a web designer for the Chron’s & Colitis Foundation. Hiring managers are always looking for employees who give back to the community and keep their skills fresh.

Then Brady joined the UX team at GoDaddy. After cruising through the initial phone interview, Brady buckled down for a four-hour interview and design challenge.

The challenge? Redesign Craigslist.

Brady drew wire frames on the white board, identified several design tweaks that would provide immediate value to users and explained his thought process. “The most important outcome was not to create a ground-breaking redesign or reinvent the wheel. The most important thing was to show my thought process, describe multiple ways to look at a problem, provide different solutions and decide which solutions to execute,” Brady said.

Brady manages the hosting and WordPress pages on GoDaddy’s ecommerce team. He is currently working on new ideas for WordPress! Outside of dev and design work, Brady’s job requires “daily project management, working across teams, understanding business objectives and aligning those objectives with the design goals.”

Brady’s advice for students?

"Nail down the basics. Work on your soft skills. Build your portfolio."

Curious about a career in UX design? Check out our Advertising Art degree.

The 2017 Founder's Game Jam took place at UAT the weekend of Sept. 22- 24 spreading a spark of game development inspiration around campus.

This year's theme was plants. Students had 48-hours, beginning on Friday afternoon, and ending on Sunday evening, to break into teams, come up with an idea, assign jobs and get to work. Because the fall semester had just began, it was exciting to see many new faces creating games together in the commons over the weekend.

"I was pleasantly surprised by the large number of first time game jammers and first semester students that decided to give their first game jam a shot. Many of the veteran game jammers partnered with the newer students and mentored them," said Adam Moore, UAT Game Design alumni and IGDA Phoenix advocate for UAT.

There were 9 games created including Duke of Daisy, Up Rooted, Heart of Shambala, Farn, Bovine Savior, Vegano vs. Nature, Plot Twist and Boogie Beetle and the Bionic Tree. You can view the current submissions here.

Duke of Daisy - Game Jam winner at UAT

Here are the game jam winners:

· Duke of Daisy – won best game overall.
· Up Rooted – won best use of theme
· Heart of Shambala – won best art
· Farn – won the café prize

Congratulations to all the winners and good work to all game jam participants!

We spoke with game creator Khirey Sumerall about current UAT Game Studios team World of Martz.

World of Martz is a multiplayer game that combines different genres to create intense combat with strategy and quick decision making skills. The player must also strategize ways to defeat random level events and a vast level to plan where you stalk your enemy in which you can succeed by deception teamwork or free for all.

This game also has a day and night cycle that creates level events where enemies will spawn to complicate the head-to-head play between players who have unique abilities and powers with melee hand weapon combat.

Here's an example of a build review that each game development team submits as their progress incrementally throughout the semester.

World of Martz is also a single player game. As we hope to eventually get multiplayer to work consistently and the functionality is not always there so we will most likely focus on single player aspect for the end of the summer semester of development.

Follow World of Martz on Facebook and Twitter.

UAT Game Studios is hosting a summer Game Jam at UAT on July 7-9, to power up the level of energy and productivity around campus.

Game Jams unfold quickly in just 48-hours, giving developers a deadline of completion. UAT Professor Ben Reichert is a huge advocate for Game Jams and students starting their own indie game studio.

Game Jams are held at UAT multiple times a year usually producing some really awesome games. Some notable past Game Jam winners have been Whiskered Away, Couch Game, Happy Skies and Crimson Nights, which have all seen further development.

How does a Game Jam work? We spoke with Game Programming student Jesse Rogers about his experience working in Game Jams and he described the process.

• Reveal the theme
• Form a team
• Discuss ideas and concepts quickly (less than 2 hours)
• Gather and write a quick game document - functions, features, art assets, etc.
• Get to work, individual skills - development stage
• Test game regularly
• Sleep and eat when you can, aim for 6 hours per night to function
• Remove bugs and features, broken or ran out of time
• Submit finished project
• Judging and awards

"Most people will come up with an idea at the beginning and half way through will have to pivot just like in actual game development. Prepare for things to go bad, just don't freak out about it," Jesse said.

Join the Game Studios Game Jam at UAT on July 7-9. For more information visit the UAT Game Studios Facebook page.

Dennis Porter, an alumni who studied Game Art & Animation at UAT, graduated in December 2013. Since gaining experience in the field over the last few years, Dennis has learned a lot about what it takes to break into the AAA Game Industry as an artist. In case you weren't aware, it's quite the competitive market to land your dream job.

Currently, Dennis is working as Texture Artist at Certain Affinity Game Studio in Austin, Texas, where he works on a team of four members who are responsible for creating physically accurate textures for the studio's projects. Dennis collaborates with the texturing team, world builders, tech artists, producers and art leads to make sure everything is being received properly.

"I really enjoy the culture here. Our management is very experienced which keeps us from having to work overtime, a sacrifice that is fairly common in this industry. Everyone at Certain Affinity is very friendly, has lots of experience and is willing to help and learn from each other," Dennis said.

Game Art Alumni Dennis Porter

Dennis said his current position was achieved through a culmination of experiences as he hopped between smaller indie studios for a couple of years and even took a year-long absence from work to focus on skill building before applying for and feeling eligible for his current position.

Dennis feels the GAA degree helped prepare him for his current job because he was able to build a generalist skill set, including rigging, animation, scripting, modeling, texturing, while he had the freedom to specialize in one specific discipline, such as environment art.

ARK Forge Render

"Having a generalist skill set allowed me to more easily integrate into indie studios which I used as a stepping stone to get into my current AAA studio. I should note however it is important to specialize into one or two disciplines if your goal is to work at a AAA studio," Dennis said.

Some of the most recent titles Dennis has worked on are:

• Call of Duty: Remastered: Dennis was responsible for texturing many of the assets in a number of the single player maps.
• Mafia III: Worked on environment texturing and collision.
• ARK: Survival Evolved: Created models and textures for some of the crafting stations and other items in the game.

You can view more of Dennis Porter's work on his professional portfolio.

Over the past few semesters, UAT Game Studios students developed a  game called Crimson Nights, which is a multiplayer dungeon crawler with a retro arcade feel.

Crimson Nights developers were introduced to a film crew, who were in the process of producing a film called "Show No Mercy" and they wanted to have a video game displayed on the arcade machine in their film. The filmmakers loved Crimson Night's retro arcade style and decided it was perfect for their film.

Over a weekend, the development team got to work and sent over some ideas for the film crew. From there, Crimson Nights got their first big break in cinema!

• Kenny Ryan, Lead Designer, created the character head, weapons and collected all of the parts needed.
• Terrence Miller, Lead Artist, worked on the title screen art.
• Jake Turocy, Character Artist, worked on the character body.
• Zak Kaszubowski, Environment, Decals and Effects Artist, created the props.
• Kendal Cormany, Programming Management and Mechanics, worked on animations.
• Jersey Calderwood, Lead Programmer, worked on programming the menus for navigation.

See the trailer including Crimson Night's contribution to the film, "Show No Mercy" in the video below.

UAT students are ready for Phoenix Comicon starting tomorrow at the Phoenix Convention Center!

The Arizona Video Games Showcase joined Phoenix Comicon last year giving UAT indie game companies a chance to showcase their completed games to the public. This year, UAT Game Studios Team Leads stepped it up by pitching Phoenix Comicon as panelists; for which they were selected to speak about “Team Leads Perspective on Game Development.”

Team Lead for Project: Oddity, Harlan Whitfield who graduated in Spring 2015 with a degree in Game Art and Animation has a great deal of knowledge in 2D Art and Animation. He plans to mainly discuss experimental art and game design during the Comicon Panel.

Project Oddity Development Team working in UAT Game Studios

Let's learn more about where Harlan's idea for Project: Oddity originated.

According to Harlan, Oddity was originally a "Student Innovation Project" (SIP), which focused on innovation in our major field of study. I thought that art may be difficult to innovate, but I brainstormed some of my favorite games and elements that have existed for decades but were rarely expanded on. I focused on mechanics and storytelling elements and came up with the idea of “shadow saves,” expanding on ideas from some of my favorite games.

Inspired by the Silent Hill games, Oddity plays off how these games would have multiple endings, many of which were only accessible through playing over a saved file and how Silent Hill 3 would react to saved files from Silent Hill 2 and cause a unique event to happen, changing the game. There are games that change slightly when you play the game and there are some that even break the fourth wall to talk about what you did in a previous save but these are rarely a major element in the game and often have little impact on the actual game play.

Oddity explores the possibility of a game that saves context information, such as character feelings, memories and special events and using them to manipulate the game. While other games rely on completing a game to get new content, Oddity wants every action to have an impact on the same game. Actions taken earlier within the game can have a great impact on later events and should be thought out by the player. In most games that deal with choice, players can simply reload and keep changing their decisions to get the results they want, as characters in game don't usually remember your actions. Oddity focuses on remembering these actions and using them to influence the game every time the player reloads to a save file, either by dying or manually reloading to a previous save. Oddity focuses on replay-ability, designing a game that changes the more you play it. There are existing games that react to previous gameplay or small unlocked details but they are minor changes. Oddity uses element as a core mechanic; allowing players to jump between load files in a single story arc to make subtle to drastic changes to in-game details.

Take a look at the latest version of Project Oddity in the demo below.

Currently the Project: Oddity development team consists of:

• Harlan Whitfield – Product Owner, Art and Design Lead
• Rachel Coniglio - programmer
• Kayla Godard - artist
• Axl Pacheco - artist
• Steven Crane - design
• John Weiner - design

Each semester the team members working on Oddity change. We keep a list of current members and their roles on our website.

Project: Oddity Team Lead to Speak on Phoenix Comicon Panel

The team originally pitched Greenlight in Fall 2015 and was just approved at Spring Greenlight to continue development this summer. Progress thus far: The development team for Project: Oddity has created the basic mechanics, detailed story elements (the game is an expansive, changing story) for the demo and is now polishing the demo for public play testing.

Keep up-to-date with game demos on Project: Oddity's website.

ABOUT PHOENIX COMICON PANEL:

As experienced game development team leads within UAT Game Studios, students will discuss the Greenlight process and how they came to lead each respective project. Students will also talk about the process of developing games within the production studio, as well as give insight to the day in the life of a game project lead.

At UAT, game students work with a diverse group of disciplines, including the UAT Digital Video program, and have a unique perspective on the development process. As a group, each game lead has faced unique circumstances and can share numerous insights into the ways those challenges have influenced them as developers. Attend the panel on June 2, from 1-2 p.m., at the Phoenix Convention Center in room West 213A. For more information, click here.

With only days until the beginning of Phoenix Comicon, the excitement of UAT students is rising to a crescendo. Part of the enthusiasm is for a panel being presented by some of the UAT Game Studio project team leads. In this panel the leads will discuss "Team Leads Perspective on Game Development."

Team lead for The Cortez Family Justin “JT” Trimmer, also worked on the project The Deadliest War. JT, who majors in game programming, has a great deal of knowledge in Unity development, game scripting with C#, and creative writing. He plans to mainly to discuss what is was like to contribute meaningfully to two projects simultaneously during the Comicon Panel.

The Cortez Family Development Team - Professor Hue Henry and JT Trimmer

The Cortez Family was first pitched for Greenlight by Professor Matthew Henry. JT volunteered to work with him as a programmer and scrum master. After three weeks, project leadership was transferred completely to JT, so that Professor Henry could be available to provide mentorship to more students in the UAT Game Studios. In addition to JT the team also included two artists who were taking the UAT Game Studios class online.

The Cortez Family Team Members
JT Trimmer – Lead Programmer/Team Lead
Professor Matthew Henry – Concept Creator/Mentor
Charles Loy – Artist
Paul Johnston – Artist
The team originally pitched Fall Greenlight in December 2015. In the following 15 class weeks, the game matured from an initial concept to a near release state.

ABOUT PHOENIX COMICON PANEL:
As experienced game development team leads within UAT Game Studios, students will discuss the Greenlight process and how they came to lead each respective project.

Students will also talk about the process of developing games within the production studio, as well as give insight to the day in the life of a game project lead. At UAT, game students work with a diverse group of disciplines, including the UAT Digital Video program, and have a unique perspective on the development process. As a group, each game lead has faced unique circumstances and can share numerous insights into the ways those challenges have influenced them as developers.

Attend the panel on June 2, from 1-2 p.m., at the Phoenix Convention Center in room West 213A. For more information, click here.

Who's ready for Phoenix Comicon? Just two more days until the fun begins at Phoenix Convention Center.

The Arizona Video Games Showcase joined the Con last year giving UAT indie game companies a chance to showcase their completed games to the public. This year, UAT Game Studios Team Leads stepped it up by pitching Phoenix Comicon as panelists; for which they were selected to speak about "Team Leads Perspective on Game Development."

Team Lead for Mirrored: The Reflective Resolution, Benjamin Pope who studied Game Design and Game Art & Animation has a great deal of knowledge in Game Design/Production, Psychology and leading teams. Ben is qualified to give his perspective on game development because he created his own game company called Live in the Game, LLC in 2015. He has also worked on and manages other projects from the studio: Mirrored: Pop-Up Play Mobile, Model Weapons Expert, Wry Reveries, Puppet Master and an educational, history app called Map of Games, as part of the studio's mission to give back to the gaming community. Ben has also hosted multiple Game Jams to encourage game developers to fill their portfolios with completed works.

Let's learn more about where Ben's idea for Mirrored: The Reflective Resolution originated.

Per Ben: I got the idea for Mirrored from my work in psychology and counseling, where I dealt with children, teenagers and adults who went through traumatic events. I wanted to weave psychological meanings into my games to give them depth and to merge my psychology background with game design. Additionally, I love the concept of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and I designed Mirrored to have an influence on the protagonist and is also mirrored a bit with the main character's cat companion.

See the latest demo of Mirrored: The Reflective Resolution in the video below.

The development process for Mirrored began before joining Greenlight, which is what we felt was best for the game. We had been in production for a year before merging it into the structure of UAT Game Studios development. It was challenging at first but much was learned in doing so to bring the game to a more professional level of industry development. A significant benefit in addition to joining UAT Game Studios was the ability to work with a lot more students, attracting both on campus and online talent coming together to work on the development process and learning from each other how to better run the team. Working in the studio and having more dedicated development time, we were able to better hold each member accountable of their tasks, helping to mimic real-world industry settings.

Mirrored has come along way in its life cycle thanks to the efforts of all team members involved. See the progress the Mirrored team has made here: link to game builds or website

The team originally pitched Greenlight in May 2015.

How did you find team members? I found some members of the team for this and other games through working in classes alongside students who found the projects interesting and then inviting them to work with our team and in the studio. Many core and permanent members were found through this means. Game job fairs were used to go through many rounds of recruits over the years to find developers who would remain and work on the games.

Mirrored Game Team Lead to Speak at Phoenix Comicon

The Greenlight process enabled a lot more exposure for each game. UAT Game Studios inspired many students to return to the game to build up their work experience. Thanks to UAT and the never ending work of Mirrored's original members to mentor and lead new team members.

Who are your team members?

The Mirrored: The Reflective Resolution team has consisted of many team members over the years, all of which are greatly appreciated for their work.

Mirrored Game Development Team at UAT - Desiree Nienhaus and Kathy Norris

The team members currently contributing are:

Ben Pope - Creative Director/Lead Design/CEO
Desiree Nienhaus - Assistant Mgr/General Artist
Kathy Norris - Assistant Mgr/General Artist/Videographer
James Amparan - Lead Level Artist
Kasey Harris - Lead Animator/Character Artist
Chris Helm - Lead Programmer
Shawn Meek - SCRUM Master/Programmer
Dave Engleman - Programmer
Lydia Roa-Netherton - Social Media/Community Manager/Marketing
Sarah Eberhardt - 2D Storyboard Artist
Nicole Eberhardt - 2D Storyboard Artist
Jonathan Weiner - Level Designer/2D Artist
Brandon Gardner - Lead 3D Artist/Animator/Textures
Lucas Ciarlante - Lead Sound Designer/Musician
Rebecca Pope - Marketing
James Simpson - Programmer

The studio wishes to thank all the contributors over the production cycle who have put forth a lot of good work in the project in many varied capacities.

About Mirrored: The Reflective Resolution:
Follow this 2.5D thriller and puzzler that follows the story of a girl named Lily and her mysterious cat companion Logos through several levels that involve dealing with the loss of her parents and fitting in with her new life situation toward the goal of resolution. This requires entry into a mirrored/alternate reality to battle shadow bosses with a defensive mechanic used to survive the battles.

Lily and Logos of Mirrored Game

ABOUT PHOENIX COMICON PANEL:
As experienced game development team leads within UAT Game Studios, students will discuss the Greenlight process and how they came to lead each respective project.

Students will also talk about the process of developing games within the production studio, as well as give insight to the day in the life of a game project lead. At UAT, game students work with a diverse group of disciplines, including the UAT Digital Video program, and have a unique perspective on the development process. As a group, each game lead has faced unique circumstances and can share numerous insights into the ways those challenges have influenced them as developers.

Attend the panel on June 2, from 1-2 p.m., at the Phoenix Convention Center in room West 213A. For more information, click here.

Connect with Live in the Game, LLC studio on Facebook and Twitter at @liveinthegame2. Support the Mirrored Game with new Mirrored t-shirts and posters on their merchandise page, available here.

UAT Alumni Godric Johnson is currently developing "Cyberpunk Casanova," dystopian visual novel thriller set in a dark future where the decisions you make can lead to Money, Romance, Danger and even Death for indie game development company Jetstreame.

The Kickstarter and Steam campaigns for Cyberpunk Casanova both went live on Valentine's Day 2016.

Cyberpunk Casanova is what we like to call a dystopian dating sim. It is our goal to create a dating sim with a western approach. To achieve this and maintain balance with what fans like about the genre, we decided to contrast the "grimdark" setting with bright and vibrant artwork. We also made a decision to raise the danger level.

Choices you make in game will not only influence how a person feels about you, but can also shape future “life or death” scenarios and major events for both you and the NPCs.

Cyberpunk Casanova- character art

Please support Cyberpunk Casanova on Kickstarter and Steam. We love to see what amazing and innovative works our alumni take part in.

The language and tone of this game is made for adults. Characters will not shy away from using certain "expletives." Your goal in the game is simple. Decide how you will use the wits and influence of the protagonist in order to defeat the greatest enemy of all… BOREDOM.

Our estimated release date is February 2017 with our target platforms being PC, Mac, iOS and Android tablet devices.

Watch the Cyberpunk Casanova trailer -

About Jetstreame Studios: Jetstreame Studios represents a group of people who are very passionate about the game industry and wanted very much to break into it and develop our own games. We were all brought together by our lead designer and studio head, Godric Johnson.

Congratulations to the recently awarded Game Programming student, Camila Magrane, who was selected as a 2016 IGDA Scholar securing a spot for her to attend the ever popular Game Developers Conference we all know simply as GDC, which takes place at the Moscone Center in San Fransisco, from March 14-18.

Camila is a multimedia artist originally from Caracas, Venezuela. She is a recent graduate of the University of Advancing Technology where she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Game Programming. Before pursuing a degree in game development, Camila studied photography and film making which gave her a strong foundation in visual storytelling and design. She is also passionate about programming in education. Most recently she created a curriculum for teaching elementary school students programming and game development skills, which is currently being used in Venezuelan public schools. Her latest interests lie in VR development and multimedia storytelling.

Adam Moore, UAT Game Studios Graduate student and co-chair of UAT’s Academic Chapter of the IGDA said, "I worked with Camila on the game Oxygen and I encouraged her to apply for the scholarship. Camila impressed me because she was in Venezuela training teachers and teaching 3rd – 6th grade students to program games while she was working on her degree. I felt that Camila would be an excellent candidate for the scholarship due to her hard work to expand the global community of game developers."

The scholarships are awarded to the most promising students studying anything related to game development. Scholars still receive an all-access pass, just like they always have, but now it also includes a lot more – mentorship from members of industry, opportunities to visit local studios or even meeting with senior figures in the industry.

We are so happy for Camila and hope she is awarded many great experiences and opportunities while attending GDC.