SGA gives details on mobile app development

An award-winning graphic designer will create a new UH smartphone application, which will be released later this semester.

The Student Government Association announced Pentagram, a multi-disciplinary design firm, had been selected out of seven companies to produce the mobile app earlier this month. SGA will now work with one of the company’s partners, DJ Stout, to develop it.

Stout has been with Pentagram since January 2000. Before joining the leading design company, he spent more than a decade as art director for Texas Monthly Magazine. Currently, some of his graphic design work is on permanent display at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

Stout specializes in branding companies and website design. Four years ago, he led the rebranding of Popeye’s Chicken, switching its name from Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits to Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen.

SGA Vice President Turner Harris is enthusiastic about working with Stout and his team at Pentagram.

“I can’t tell you how excited I am to work with them on this project,” Harris said. “We are slowly but surely making progress.”

The app will feature alerts for University safety and events, maps to various locations on campus, weather updates, shuttle bus routes, with information on next bus arrival, and UH photos and Twitter updates from President Renu Khator.

SGA will unveil the app in parts and hopes to have additional features in the future, including an academic service that will allow students will be able to check their grades.

Harris said SGA will work to ensure this app — which has taken nearly a year to develop since the initial approval by the Student Fees Advisory Committee — will be worth the wait and money.

“Due to the amount of money involved and the magnitude of this project, we will be proceeding as prudently as possible,” Harris said.

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