Grades: History of Visual Communications

Okay, so I'm pretty happy with the grades. I wish I'd studied for the Final, or else I could have gotten a 100%. I only missed two questions, but I was preoccupied with a death in the family, unfortunately. I still got an A+, so what does it matter? Regardless, this class was fun, and it offers the students a fresh air and really gives us a chance to get a creative boost going. On another note, I'm a bit disappointed with my "grades" overall. Last...

Read More

New Wallpaper

Hey everyone. It's officially break, and until Christmas I've been super bored. I ended up doing this Wallpaper. It's not very Christmasy, so I'm going to do another one, soon. I was actually recording this, but my computer ended up crashing half-way through, so I lost my recording. Sorry. :( I'll be sure to record the Christmas one for you guys. :) So here it is. I also created a new "Wallpaper" section at the bottom where you'll be able to download...

Read More

Month 11: History of Visual Communications

Final Project For the final project, we were supposed to create a poster-esque something that was one of the art styles we'd learned about in class. The teacher allowed me to do something a bit more traditional, since we're rarely ever able to do something along those lines at Full Sail. Overall, I ended up going the Dada / Anti-Art route (though it ended up being more Auto-Destructive than anything). I got a lot of compliments on the piece, and...

Read More

Month 11: History of Visual Communications

Lab 2: Watercolor In this particular lab, I believe the goal was trying to get students to open up. What I really enjoy about this class is that you really do have creative freedom, for the most part. The exercise, I believe, helped to get students to understand abstraction of art. The process started with students closing their eyes and scribbling on the paper with permanent marker. Each scribble was collected and then distributed again. I have...

Read More

Grades: Designing for Web Standards

This month was hard. It was more or less learning the concepts and understanding the concepts behind Cascading Style Sheets. And I won't lie, it was frustrating. Even though I bombed the second quiz (and YES, I did study), I ended up getting an A, so I'm very, very happy and thankful. The teacher is a cool guy, even though he can be a little rough at some times. He definitely strikes me as someone who is a tough-love kinda' guy. He'll make you cry....

Read More

Month 11: History of Visual Communications

Lab 1: Art Nouveau Okay, so things were a little crazy with the break. Tuesday, we went to the Morse Museum to get some inspiration for our first Art Nouveau project. It's a little bookmark, and we have to make it styled the same way as the general period, even though there are multiple styles. It gives us a bit of creative freedom. However, it can be a little confusing, because they're actually looking for Artist Statements and stuff about your...

Read More

Month 11: History of Visual Communications

Hi everyone! So this is my last Gen-Ed class. So far, we haven't really done anything, so I don't have anything fancy to really show off. Last month, I had to take off. My video card fried and the school didn't have any loaner laptops for me to use. I guess that's one bad thing about Full Sail. If your stuff magically stops working, you're screwed. Unless you're in CA / GA. Then you have open labs. But this wasn't the case for me... But, all in all, I suppose it was a good thing I was "forced" to take a month off. My dad has cancer, so I've...

Read More

Month 10: Designing for Web Standards

So this month has been pretty relaxed. Apparently, the first Exam is supposed to be hard, but I found that it isn't if you study the material. The instructor gives several links an an eBook that are really beneficial. I especially love the O'Reilly series. Studying for several hours for about three days helped me to get a 100% on the first Exam. It's only hours before the second, and I'm feeling confident. I thought I'd take a few minutes to make a post about the work that I've done before I get back to my Lynda videos. So each lab in this class...

Read More

Month 10: Designing for Web Standards

This class is, the easiest and yet the hardest class I've had, both at the same time. There's a constant balance of love and hate, and an overwhelming sense of fear that I'm going to fail this class. The teacher is very organized and presents the information in a clear, concise manner that is easy to understand. And while code is little more than memorization of a few selectors, properties and values, the semantics behind why you do what you do, is certainly the more complicated aspect of CSS. Learning specificity, and how the Cascade works, are...

Read More

Grades: Web Design Fundamentals

False alarm! This is actually an A+! :) *Update: Lab 2 is portrayed as a zero right now. There was a mistake when submitting the grades, so the updated version should be available within the mon...

Read More

Month 9: Intellectual Property and Law

This month has been an extremely easy month. I'm only about half way through. The class is extremely helpful in regards to how you can protect your rights as a designer. They talk a lot about Intellectual Property (go figure), about trademarks, registration and copyright. For lab each day, we are required to fill out a questionnaire that reinforces the subjects taught in class that day. I personally love the teacher. She's really sweet, and very...

Read More

Month 8: Web Design Fundamentals

Web Design Fundamentals is a class that most students simply call "HTML" because that's what you learn... is HTML(5). Throughout the month, you are taught how to create a document that has semantic markup, the knowhow of when to use an element. For example, the diferences between a DIV tag, a SECTION, and an ARTICLE, or the differences between <i> and <em>. If you'd like to view my work, you can go to: http://lrroberts0122.github.com/W...

Read More

Grades: Applied Design Tools and Interfaces

This class was definitely the most challenging class I've had to date. But it has also been one of the most fun. For those in an accelerated program, this month is paired with Principles of Production Process, another one of my favorites. Though, I wouldn't change the order I took them in, only because I feel PPP should be taken before WIU in any case. This month, I really pushed the concepts I've learned since my start at Full Sail. I haven't heard...

Read More

Grades: Web Interface and Usability

Going through this entire month, I was always worried that I was going to do poorly in this class. I think that's more or less because the teacher was a little intimidating. I ended up doing very well, better than I thought. It's a shame that I didn't finish this project in time for ESPN to choose a design, but there was nothing else I could do. The scheduling wasn't in my favor. Maybe next time, it will be....

Read More

Grades: Principles of Production Process

Apologies. I've been forgetting to post the grades recently. I did exceptionally well in Principles of Production Process and was awarded a Course Director's Award. All I really have to say is that I'm happy with my grade. This class was great, and really helped to emphasize Full Sails motto, "Real World Education." ...

Read More

Month 7: Applied Design Tools and Interfaces

Lab 8 and 9: Get Away Travels Composition Same thing again, once we were finished with our wireframes, we went ahead and completed a style tile before starting the composition. We had to upload those screens to (a great little program) Invision. Just like the ESPN project, you can click through the clickable prototype. Just follow the link below. If you get lost, you can hit the "Shift" key to find out where to click. I guide you through the process and force you to click on certain things. Deal with it. :P http://invis.io/HA51B...

Read More

Month 7: Applied Design Tools and Interfaces

Lab 6 and 7: Get Away Travel Wireframes After we finished the Acme Movie Reviews website, we moved onto the Get Away Travels site. Since I've already explained the process with some of this stuff, I'll just post the wireframes here. However... Here's a little bit of a look into the "real life" at Full Sail. Being a Full Sail student, I'm naturally broke. I haven't been able to pay my cable bill for two months now, and in the middle of this month...

Read More

Month 7: Applied Design Tools and Interfaces

Labs 4 and 5: Acme Movie Reviews Composition Once the high-fidelity wireframes were finished for the ACME movie reviews website, we continued to do compositions for the four pages we did wireframes for. Before we began our compositions, however, we had to do a style tile, which is a great document I would recommend as a deliverable for clients. You can get a free download here: http://styletil.es/ The Style Tile includes examples of primary, secondary...

Read More

Month 7: Advanced Design Tools and Interfaces

Lab 2: Acme Movie Reviews - Designing for Task Based Workflows For both Labs two and three we're working on high-fidelity wireframes for a fictional movie review website. Included is the home page and the genre listing page. (Next class are three additional wireframes.) Utilizing design patterns, principles and elements, I've created a composition that I feel is quite unique compared to sites like IMDb, Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes and Movie Tickets....

Read More

Month 7: Advanced Design Tools and Interfaces

Lab 1: Principle and Elements of Design For this lab we were told to create a design for print. It had to encompass at least two Principles of Design. I chose emphasis and contrast. They were easy design principles, and though I don't like to take the easy way out, it just fit my design really well. Additionally, we had to create another document with color swatches featuring their RGB and CMYK color values. This lab was really easy, but incredibly...

Read More

Helpful Web Design and Development Links

Hello everyone! I'll be updating this as frequently as possible. This list is a compilation of any media that I've found would be a great help to any web designer or developer out there. As I go through more classes, I will continue to update this with specific links. Thanks for reading! Everything to Know About the DMCA www.chillingeffects.org" Know Your Online Rights as an Artist www.rightsforartists.com Licensing for Your Online Work www.creativecommons.org Great Place to Host and Share PDF's www.scribd.com Adobe's Builder for Phone Gap build.phonegap.com Adobe's...

Read More

Month 6: Web Interface and Usability

Hey there everyone. I'm finally able to post this. Last month was extremely work-intensive. I feel sorry for the people who had two classes. Thankfully, I only had one. I would recommend that you talk to your Student Advisor before taking this class and take it by itself if you truly want to produce something really nice. That being said, I had Erin instead of Chris Burke this month. It was a fun class, and she really goes out of her way to help...

Read More

Month 6: Web Interface and Usability

Hey there everyone. I apologize for not keeping up with my posts as often as I should. This class has been extremely demanding. Some of the experiences I've had are hard. For those of you who are considering going to Full Sail, you would have Web Interface and Usability paired with another class, Networking and Server Structures. About two weeks ago, when we had our midterm, we were assigned a project for Web Interface and Usability (on Tuesday) and also were given a reading assignment (one hundred pages!). On top of that, Wednesday, there was...

Read More

Month 5: Principles of Production Process

Hey, I'm already at the end of another month. It's hard to believe since time has been flying by so fast. I've been thinking about doing some YouTube videos to go along with my blog. I'll put up a poll so you guys can help me decide. So basically, it's a lot of PDF's that I've done, as well as a newsletter. Lab 3: Project Requirements, Information Architecture, and Presentation In this lab (and for homework) we had to produce three documents. The first document was the Project Requirements, detailing what requirements were needed for the redesign...

Read More

Grades: Networks and Server Structures

Hey everyone! Sorry that I haven't been posting very much lately. I've been continuously working on school work. A little more than a week ago we finally got our grades back from NSS. Despite that 77 on the Midterm, I still pulled through with an "A" which I'm proud of. That class is extremely information intensive, though it gets much easier at the end. I believe that the beginning of NSS throws you off, and you're presented with so much information,...

Read More

Month 5: Principles of Production Process

Today is my third class in Principles of Production Process. I haven't been able to post much since my boyfriend was admitted to the hospital. He's okay now, so I'm taking the time to update my blog. So far in this class, they talk about the Production Process and the documents and planning that are required in each. So far, we've worked on branding who we are and discovering a make-shift client project. Luckily for me, I get the practice of actually working for a client. My boyfriend has started a new website: www.gamereview.tv I've been steadily...

Read More

Month 4: Networks and Server Structures

This month has been incredibly information intensive all throughout. When the teacher says, "Study the information you just learned every night," he really does mean it. I live with my boyfriend, and he has two Cisco degrees for networking, so I had an advantage there. The class dabbled into the OSI model, cryptography, binary conversion, subnetting and a whole lot more. The first test is the hardest. I haven't been able to keep my blog updated for...

Read More

Month 4: Networks and Server Structures

Lab 4: Subnetworks Today was a bit rough. We learned how to Subnet. I'm not going to get into that, but it is probably the hardest thing we've had to learn this month, though with practice it gets easier. Basically for lab, we were given a Network Address and Class, and told we needed X amount of Subnetworks and X amount of Hosts per network. For that, we needed to find the Subnet ID's (up to a certain number), the Broadcast Address for those IDs and then the Range. So a lot of math was involved and you can't use your calculator. All in all it...

Read More

Grades: Art History

Got our grades back from Art History earlier than usual. I really worked hard throughout the month, so I'm pleased with my 98 A+. Hopefully posting my work and showing the grades helps you to get an understanding of what it takes to pass these classes and were you should be as far as skill level when you come into the program...

Read More

Month 4: Networks and Server Structures

Lab 3: Searching Google Lab three was fairly simple. We were taught how to use Google 'correctly.' Basically, we searched in formats like this: Charles would like to buy a Cannon EOS 20D for under $500.00. He spends some time searching: [canon] [canon eos] [canon eos $300..$500] [canon eos $300..$500 site:ebay.com] [canon eos $300..$500 site:ebay.com -450d -"eos 7"] [canon eos 20d $300..$500 site:ebay.com OR site:amazon.com -450d -"eos 7"] There were several questions like that on a sheet that we had to fill out. It was fairly simple. Lab...

Read More

Month 4: Networks and Server Structures

Lab 2: Terminal Commands This first lab, we dealt with a lot of commands in terminal. We learned in lecture how to create files and directories, move and rename them, delete them, and much more. We had to create a certain file structure in terminal and then export the text (of terminal) and turn that into our teachers. Overall, it was fairly easy, taking about an average of 45 minutes to complete. I love working with stuff like this, so I'm proud...

Read More

Month 4: Networks and Server Structures

Today was my first day of the NSS class. The teacher is a smart ass, and he makes the class incredibly fun. He jokes, he's sarcastic, and with our class being so small (only eight people), it's definitely tight nit. Everyone talks. The first day we pretty much had a history of computers. My advice to anyone going into this class, take a lot of notes. There are certain things he says which are really important, which are not on the lecture slides. We have lecture and lab in the same room. So he lets us out for dinner and then we come back. Since...

Read More

Month 3: Art History

Search Box input[type=submit] { border-radius: 0px; border-left: none; box-shadow: none; } Project 4: Lynda Tutorial Yesterday was the last lab. We watched a 40 minute video and were given a take home assignment to do a tutorial from lynda.com. Most people do Photoshop or Illustrator. I'm already extremely proficient in both, knowing all the techniques even demonstrated in their Master tutorials. So I decided to...

Read More

Grades: Advanced Computer Graphics

Again, another A+ from Advanced Computer Graphics. I'm really happy with the overall grade. I worked really hard for it all month long. ...

Read More

Month 3: Art History

I apologize for not having posted anything sooner. We've done several things since I last posted. I've been caught up in other personal activities outside of Full Sail and I decided that it was finally time to sit down and post all of the things that have happened. Project 3: Stained Glass So, the following lab after the Prehistoric Digital Painting of the cave painting, we were given the project to do a little stained glass piece. Most people...

Read More

Month 3: Art History

Project 1: Pre-Historic The labs for Art History are very simple. The first day was a Photoshop introduction. We were there for about 30 minutes and we finished the project and were able to leave early. Basically, it had to be related to a subject we'd studied in class. They gave us a "cave painting" theme, so I did a bloody handpri...

Read More

Month 3: Art History

Yesterday was my first day in Art History. There wasn't too much going on. Just introductions and stuff for the new people of Full Sail. It's supposed to be your first month at Full Sail, combined with English Composition, however, since I transferred from Game Art, I had it after a couple of months. We were in Building 4 today. I was dreading it, because they have these tiny little desks on slick tile floors that don't fit your laptop completely. Those rooms made me so nervous because I always felt like my laptop would end up in a disaster....

Read More

Month 2: Advanced Computer Graphics

Project 2: The Final Hi everyone! It's been a while since I last made a post. I haven't received my grades back for the Jabberwocky. Today was the last day of class, and my final is finished. It's actually very odd. I've had a lot (and boy, do I mean a lot) of contempt for this project. I was never very happy for it. Probably because the Lab staff tried to kill the pre-production ideas I had when we first started. I had a friend who helped inspire...

Read More

Grades: Designing Computer Graphics

Here are my final grades for the first month! I'm very happy with these grades, because these are officially the highest grades I've ever made in my entire lif...

Read More

Month 2: Advanced Computer Graphics

Well, we got our grades back from the Animation Project. I got a 5/5, or in other words, 100%. Today we'll be showing off the digital paintings we did. We're expected to get the grades back from our first Practicum and the digital paintings next class, though nothing is guaranteed. Back to lecture, then. See you guys soon....

Read More

Month 2: Advanced Computer Graphics

Mini Project 02: The Jabberwocky For this mini project, we were to do a digital painting of a monster that you would probably see in a children's book. My rendition of a Jabberwocky (it could not be a dragon) was a little darker than most, however it was made appropriate: no gore or internal organs, though there are some implications. The process started with a simple sketch, scanned in and I basically used it as guidelines before fine tuning the...

Read More

Month 2: Advanced Computer Graphics

We got our grades back today for the layout. The grading rubric did the grades on a scale of 0-10. I got a 9 for my layout, so that's an A. We were assigned our Mini 02 project. It's a digital painting of our version of a Jabberwocky. (I think that's how it's spelled.) I started the sketch. A lot of people said it reminded them of one of the Silent Hill monsters. I'll just upload a finished version in a few da...

Read More

Month 2: Advanced Computer Graphics

Mini Project 01: GIF Animation Today was a pretty busy day. I turned in my layout. I also received my final grade for the camera I did in Illustrator. I got a 95 A. I suspect the problems that kept me from getting a 100 were the metal effects on the ring. But still, a 95 is great. I'm happy with it. We also got the Midterm Practicum. The Practicums are basically the Photoshop "tests" they give us. This one we can take home, use our notes, help friends...

Read More

Month 2: Advanced Computer Graphics

Project 1: The Layout Now that the camera is finished, we were supposed to do a layout. One thing I will comment about in this post is the lack of communication between the course directors and the lab staff. Our teacher told us she wanted four thumbnails of our layouts. The lab staff required us to do seven different concepts, and then five layouts of the "chosen" one. I'm not complaining, I'm just pointing out a situation. I might be an exception,...

Read More

Month 2: Advanced Computer Graphics

Project 1: The Camera WOW. I'm a week into Advanced Computer Graphics, and let me say, it's been one heck of a ride, so far. Our first project is the Mechanical Object. Basically, they give us a list of images (alarm clocks, cameras, toy robots, etc. etc.) and we're expected to use that as reference and produce something that's photo real. Now, you'd think after learning some Photoshop last month, it would be easy, aaand it would be. If we were...

Read More

Month 1: Designing Computer Graphics

Designing Computer Graphics was a beginner class. It focuses on the basics of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop to create graphics and advertisements. I'm already quite advanced with Photoshop, so this month was extremely easy. Applying some fundamental concepts to Illustrator helped with the learning curve, but overall, I would say it's a very easy month. At the beginning of the month, they hand out some basic tutorials that you are required...

Read More

Introduction

Hi everyone, my name is Lindsay Roberts. I first started going to Full Sail University for Game Art. Nearly a year into the program, I realized that my true passion was for Web Design, and so I decided to switch. During my time in Game Art, I noticed a lot of skepticism from people who are hesitant to join Full Sail. There were a few reviews here and there, but my goal is to walk you through each month and give you my review on courses. I am currently in the EXTENDED course. This means, instead of taking two classes a month, I only take one. Being...

Read More