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 month, I was supposed to be in Web Standards Project, however, I had to withdraw from the class because my video card fried. (Curse you Maya!) However, I got marked an "F" with a grade of 0.00% instead of "FA" (Failed Attendance) which would be understandable considering I wasn't even there; instead, they were supposed to give me a "W" (Withdrawn), and now I have to go at some point to get this fixed, who knows when. But it dropped my GPA down to a 3.35 and I'm kind of upset, especially with the Education Department. But these are the (annoying) little things that you're going to have to deal with at Full Sail, so I suppose you should get used to it. Anyhow, here's my grade breakdown, as usual.

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 this and any other wallpapers I end up creating. Max resolution is 1920x1200. Enjoy.

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 I'm quite happy with it. I feel like through destroying things, I'm able to express who I am, which actually makes sense considering how self-destructive I've been in the past. Perhaps that was the effect trying to contain all of it.

Good news is that they're going to display it in the showcase. I'll be sure to take a picture when they do for you guys. I also wanted to give a shout-out to John Castle for his awesome photography skills!

Also, on another note, we went to the Graduate Showcase today. I found it very interesting, and exciting, because I just know one of those days, that's going to be me up there. I'm getting very excited. I'm almost half way through it. All I have to do is keep up the good work! :)

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 no idea whose scribble I got. Instead of coloring inside the lines, I just experimented. Strangely enough, I got a lot of compliments on it. I think it's because instead of trying to color inside the lines, I just tried to do something fun...

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. Not even kidding. But it was all worth it... Moving on!

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 project.

I've finished my project, I think. I may add onto it, however I'm going to wait for a final critique. Here's what it looks like for the time being.

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 been taking the time to go over and help him, and take care of some things.

Anyhow. Happy belated Thanksgiving to you all. I look forward to doing the holiday thing this year, and hopefully I can create some beautiful festive digital composites for you! I'll keep you posted as the month progresses!

See you then!

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 touches on particular aspects and categorizes CSS in a way that's beneficial and easy to learn. There are some concepts that were challenging to grasp at first, such as the Cascade and Specificity, but once I understood them at their roots, I felt a lot better about the class and information came a lot easier.

So below, is a complete list of links for what I've done for this class. The requirements were that we only had to make these links work for Firefox, so apologies to those of you who use Chrome or something else. I'll be sure to go back in and add my vendor prefixes later, so check back!

Lab 1: Color
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab1/index_linked.html

Lab 2: Typography
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab2/index.html

Lab 3: Floating
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab3/index.html

Lab 4: Gradients
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab4/index.html

Lab 5: Responsive Design
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab4/index.html

Lab 6: Forms
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab6/level-1/
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab6/level-2/
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab6/level-3/
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab6/level-4/

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 some of the harder concepts to grasp, especially when things start to get really complicated.

For labs, we've been doing the CSS for a couple of websites. The websites are only one page each, but I still try to make them look nice. Oh, and I forgot to mention, the class only requires that we make them usable in Firefox, so if there's a few gradients missing, that's because it's not coded for Chrome, Safari, Opera, etc. Apologies about that. I'll get them updated ASAP. :)

Lab 1: Color
Lab one was all about color. I've already been doing a little CSS, on and off, for approximately two years, so I continued to familiarize myself with the properties and values. To view Lab 1, click here: http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab1/index_linked.html

Lab 2: Typography
Lab two focused on typography. Kevin taught us how to use custom fonts, though I should probably look into how to use @font-face a little bit more. Still, it was an easy enough project, and there's not much to say except for showing you the website, itself: http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab2/

Lab 3: Layout
Lab three started on the fundamentals of layout for our site, where we used floating to create a two-column layout. I lost points on this particular lab because I didn't make my gallery horizontal, but vertical instead. After all the trouble I went through with the sidebar, and the need to study for an Exam that was 15% of my entire grade, I just left it as is, weighing my priorities towards the Exam, which I was told I did very well on. http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab3/

Lab 4: CSS3 Gradients
This lab focused on CSS gradients. Basically, we had to do multiple things with CSS3. It was fairly easy, and I'm updating this later than I usually would, so I don't exactly remember the specifics of the lab. But you can view it here:
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab4/

Lab 5: Responsive Web Design
What's really quite a shame about this particular project was that I was absent for this day. Basically, we had to make the webpage from Lab 3 responsive, so that depending on the device that you used, its layout would be optimized.
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab5/

Lab 6: Web Forms
Okay, so by far, this was my favorite lab. I don't know why, but I love to do web forms. Please keep in mind that these forms are best viewed in Firefox and will not work as intended in Chrome, Safari or any other explorer. There were four forms that we had to do, each getting to be more advanced than the one before. I have to say, that styling the drop-down menu items were extremely difficult, and I was too lazy to style any of the radio buttons / checkboxes.
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab6/level-1/
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab6/level-2/
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab6/level-3/
http://lrroberts0122.github.com/DWS/lab6/level-4/

Au revoir and thanks for reading!

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 month.

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 cool.

There is literally no homework for this class, so if you're extended, it's really just a break. I've been taking some time to try and freelance. I've been working for a YouTube sensation, RhinoCrunch. I love his DayZ videos, and he needed an artist to design his website. I've been collaborating with an employee from Opace, a web development firm from the UK, so this project has proven very useful for me. Right now, all I can do is post an image of the site, but when it's live, I'll link it here.

I'm very excited. This is the first website that I've designed that will actually be fully developed.

If you're interested in who RhinoCrunch is, and what he's about, check out his YouTube channel at: www.youtube.com/user/rhinocrunch

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/WDF/

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 back from the teacher, however he gives out a Course Director's Award almost every month. I'm really hoping that I earned it.

One small note: As you can see, my professionalism is at 80%. I missed a day of class, and it docks your GPS (Global Professionalism Standards) points. It's a stupid system and should be disregarded. I communicated with the teacher the day I was absent and let him know what happened. This really needs to be looked at, but I digress. /endrant

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/HA51BF6T

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 my internet cut out. There's no knowing when I'll be able to get it back, either. So. I'm a web student without internet. We'll see how this goes... I'm updating my blog from class. But, here it is!

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 and copy text as well as global navigation, textures and color palettes. After I finished that, I moved on to my comps:

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. Let me know if you have any suggestions. I love feedback like zombies love brains! Hmm. That gives me an idea for a painting...

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 fun. It's the first lab where you can do anything you want. The only requirement is that it has to be something that will be printed and it also had to use two images. I found the skully gas mask off of Google. Now that I think about it, I probably should have made my own. Perhaps it calls for a bit of a redemption. Anyhow...

The design itself is based off an idea that I had for a movie, surrounding the Denver International Airport conspiracies. Do I believe them, myself? No. But I think they'd make for a fantastic Horror / Suspense / End of the World Doomsday movie.

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 Debugger for Phone Gap
debug.phonegap.com

Backbone Directory for Phone Gap
www.github.com/ccoenraets/backbone-directory

Web Measurements
www.960.gs

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 the students. She offers study groups for the midterm and the final, and even brings prizes.

I got really lucky. ESPN contacted Full Sail and as students, we got a chance to get real world experience. I put everything into my wireframes and I believe I get to continue working on them in the next class, too.

Lab 1: Good and Bad Design
This lab is by far the easiest lab. You spend the lab walking around campus, taking pictures of what you think is good and bad design. Then you're handed a worksheet that ask you to describe certain usability principles within each design.

Lab 2: Design an Elevator Panel
This lab was also fairly simple, though it required a little bit of thinking outside of the box. You needed to design an elevator that could go up (and down) 1,000 floors, including ways to add and delete floors to (and from, respectively) a queue.





Lab 3: Flow Chart:
In this lab we were required to make a flow chart. It's a technical document that describes the layout of the site. This was fairly interesting, because we were required to go as far down as a page element, which is uncommon. Most flow charts only go down to a single page. You can reference the site diagram that I did in Principles of Production process in an earlier month.

Lab 4 - 7: ESPN KAM Project
The ESPN KAM project spanned the last four labs in the Web Interface and Usability. These labs will not be the same when you go through, but the principles are there. We had to wireframe a Kiosk application for ESPN to collect data through interviews.

After many hours of tedious wireframing, I finally completed my click-through prototype and you can view it here. If you would like to comment or critique it, please send me an email. I'd love to hear your thoughts on my design.

http://invis.io/N740BZ8E

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 a study group for two hours, you were expected to study for the test, and other people who had NSS still had to attend class on Wednesday for a full eight hours.

I ended up getting all my work done, though. I'll post it up on here as soon as I can. Another project that we will be doing next Tuesday will include a click-through wireframe, so you can see for yourself what this class has ultimately taught me. I'm going to wrap up this post, because class will be starting soon, however I'll go ahead and throw up that poll for you guys.

Thanks for reading! :)

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 project. These requirements were used to create a sitemap and wireframes for four pages of the new site. (Unfortunately, I chose a blog site, so I ended up doing over one hundred pages for the sitemap while my colleagues only ended up doing five or six pages. Still, it gave me some great experience in the subject.) Finally, we did a presentation (created a PowerPoint Document and stood up in front of the class, etc.) as if we were talking to the client about how we were going to redesign the site. The teachers gave us a lot of great information on how we should talk to the client, and also things that we shouldn't do. Below I've provided my Project Requirements and my Information Architecture documents. The PowerPoint slides are layered. Perhaps I'll make a video to show how the presentation was supposed to look. Anyhow, the site requirements document is not listed. It's basically the same thing as my Project Proposal except with different information.

Wire Frame

Site Map

Lab 4: Branded Documentation and the Email Template
This lab was incredibly fun. We were given a guided template in Photoshop where we had creative freedom to design a newsletter for ourselves and our company. I did the email template with ease. I ran into a problem, however, with my branded documentation. One of these documents required a signature, and you wouldn't be able to sign on the current template I had. So I redesigned my documentation and I liked the overall look and feel more. (This inspired the design of my email template.) So you can see the redesign in the following document. This is how all of my files will look from this point forward.

Invoice

Lab 5: Slice and Dice
Once the design was finished, we had to slice it. I went above and beyond. I sliced my template and made it function. I also custom-wrote my code, and uploaded it to the web. It doesn't work in a browser, however, and I speculate that's because of the JavaScript. I plan to redo the buttons as CSS and continue my testing. It's also mostly images right now. I'm going to see how I can do this with CSS instead. Click here to view the template online.

Lab 6: Marketing Plan
I finished the marketing plan, but I forgot to turn it in. I'm avoiding opening the document because you can see it hasn't been opened since the 20th. This could prove to be extremely useful so that the teacher will let me turn it in again. So please bear with me. It'll be uploaded later today.

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, you're not sure what to study. You try studying all of it, and then somehow, only the insignificant information sticks. It's quite frustrating. At the beginning of the class, he'll tell you to study every night. I'll agree with this little bit of advice: Study every night, like the test is tomorrow. Know all the information and continue to study it. You'll want to lock yourself up in your room and study all month if you want to pull through this class with an A+. Still, at least I got an A! :)

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 working towards developing his website, and this class is giving me a great starting point. I believe we work up to getting the site's wireframe finished, so that will give me a great place to start in regards to developing his website.

In the past two labs, we have developed our logos, created a branded template and have created a Project Proposal, or the Communications Brief. I've branded myself, or my website, "Creative Zeus" naming it after my dog. Below, I've attached a Project Proposal PDF, which has all three of them available for viewing.

Project Proposal

Lab 1: Branding
In this lab, we basically created sketches of our logo. I feel like mine turned out better than most, only because I've already put several months of thought into the name, what the logo would be, and how I'd like to represent myself. By the end of the class, I had an idea of what I wanted. At home, however, I revised it to what I'm showing you now.

Due by the next lab, however, our "homework" was to create a landscape and portrait template. This is the same template used for the Project Proposal Document. We also needed to pick out a website to redesign. This is where I chose my boyfriend's website, since it has a very basic template.

Lab 2: Project Proposal and Audience Profiles
In this lab, we focused time on creating our logos in Illustrator. I already had mine done in a simple vector black and white format. The three files we had to turn in were a black and white vector, a two-color vector, and a full color vector.

For homework, we were to work on our Project Proposal and Audience Profiles. My Project Proposal was a 14-page description of many aspects of the project. I included real research, graphs and facts supporting my analysis. It's legitimate work that could be used in a real-life situation.

The Audience Profiles were very simple. We basically had to create a profile of a character, or person, that fit the demographic that our "client" is trying to target. You had to have two profiles, a primary and secondary demographic. There's really not much to it. I didn't think it was worth putting up, but I will if people would like for me to.

That pretty much sums up everything we've done to this point. We have our first quiz today, multiple choice based on the Lecture Slides and chapters one, three and ten of our book. And that covers pretty much everything. Enjoy!

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 the fact that I've been using all of my free time to study. But the first test is forty questions. There is a multitude of information, and it's extremely hard what to decipher is the key information. Because most of it is really important. Labs allow you to focus mostly on Terminal, Mac's Operating System, equivalent to Window's "Configuration." So I suppose I'll pick up where I left off.


Lab 5: Subnetting

For this class we were basically handed out a worksheet with an example on how to subnet and then were given four problems to complete. My suggestion to you is the you should learn how to subnet if you want an extra five points on the final.

Lab 6: SSH

In this lab we established a Secure Shell Handler between Full Sail's server and our computers. Again, really easy stuff.

Lab 7: Designing a Network

I wasn't here for this lab, I had a doctor's appointment on this particular day, but you had to design a functioning network. I used a private VPN to connect the Denver, CO Network and the New York HQ Network. I think I did a pretty decent job.



Lab 8: Deploying a Lamp Server

This class we installed a virtual Operating System and worked within Linux to create a LAMP Server (Linux Apache MySQL and PHP/Python/Perl). For whatever reason, it wasn't working properly for any of the students when we tried to connect via the browser. I'm not sure what was wrong, but we finished the assignment eventually.

Lab 9: Cisco

In Lab 9 we pretty much sat down and began to work on a Cisco chapter. It walked us through some of the basic principles of Networking. At the end, we took a test and had to send a screen shot of the results to our professor.



The Tests

Throughout the month we had two written exams, a midterm and a final, and on practical which was done in terminal. On the midterm, I ended up getting a 77%. You really do need to be careful on these midterms. The questions can get really tricky. For example...

The internet is a...
A) Packet switched network
B) LAN
C) MAN
D) Non Packet switched network

The thing that threw me off was that it was drilled into my head that the internet is a WAN, the biggest wide area network there is. It IS a packet switching network, but the singular form threw me off. Because I just thought it was a bunch of network"S" when really, it is a network of networks. So you really need to be sure when it comes to answering these questions.

Also, there are fill in the blank and True or False sections. You really, really need to know your stuff.

The second test, the Final, isn't so bad. It's pretty obvious that you need to know Protocols and the OSI model. Other than that, there are a few things here and there you'll want to study about, like VPN's, etc. but that'll make up about 10% of the whole test. Also. You NEED TO KNOW WHO INVENTED THE WORLD WIDE WEB. It is Tim Burners-Lee. Make sure you know that for both tests. On the final, if you didn't know that, you automatically missed two questions.

Anyhow, after you take the final, you get a break and then you come back for the Practical. The teacher gives you a packet of information that you can use for the practical, which really made it stupid easy. I was the first one finished. Basically, he gives you a compressed file. You need to upload the file to the server, decompress the file, and then organize the files correctly. You'll need to change the permissions of some files, move files, rename files, make directories, and a few other things. Once you're finished, you'll be able to connect to the server via your browser and you can double check your work with the images that he supplies for you. It's pretty easy as long as you know your stuff.

All in all, this is Networks and Server Structures. Buckle down. It's a looong ride. At least the teacher looks is funny.

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 was a fun challenge, and now that I'm done, I'm leaving! So, I'll update you next time (after we have our Midterm).

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 4: Compressing and Addressing

This lab was also fairly simple. We worked in terminal and learned how to compress files, zip them, unzip them, and we even learned how to create .dmg files. You pay attention to the byte, kilobyte and megabyte information and report that on the worksheet they give you. The second part of that lab is more or less about finding the Network Address, the Broadcasting Address, the number of host bits, etc. Then there was a final section where it was matching a computer (in a diagram) to a description. Overall it was fairly easy.

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 to say I finished first in a clean 30 minutes and was able to talk with the lab instructors a good hour about some unrelated things. Anyhow, overall, it was very easy and by the time you're finished with the assignment, you've got a good grasp on the things that you've learned.

Another thing I'd like to point out, is that this class is very information-intensive. There is so much to know and to learn, it's hard to grasp the concept of everything. I'm just grateful that this month is the month we have spring break, so I can get some extra study in, because you definitely need it. That being said, the class thus far has been incredibly fun, and the teacher is a riot as well. :) He makes it a lot better than it could be if you had one of those monotone drags. :(

Right now I'm actually waiting outside for my third NSS lab to open. I'll try to throw an update up once I'm finished. Keep checking back for more updates! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. :)

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 it was a history of computers, we got to watch a movie: The Pirates of Silicon Valley. It was a pretty good movie.

So, that's pretty much it as far as our first day went. During the class, we were told we'd have two exams (one Midterm and one Final), and the Final Exam would be in terminal. So I look forward to that.

Read More

Month 3: Art History

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 do something relating to my program and chose a CSS tutorial for styling a search box. The main things that interested me regarding this particular tutorial was:
1) The icon inside the search box,
2) The specific style of the button, and...
3) The normalization between browsers so that it looks correct and functions correctly in all browsers or at least has a nice alternative for earlier versions of internet explorer.
Here is the finished (and working) version of the search module:

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 chose simple objects, but since I'm already well versed in Illustrator, I decided to challenge myself a little bit and I did an arch angel.

The following lab after that, the program director spoke about each different program regarding future classes, how to approach being a Full Sail student, and other miscellaneous things. This is a class that you will take at the very start of your program, so that's why he's talking about these sort of things. Since I transferred from Game Art, I ended up taking this class third instead of first.

The following class we had our Mid Term exam. It was fairly easy. All the things you need to know an study for are on your syllabus. There are like, eight things and about ten questions. I ended up getting a 97. I missed one question.

Then, we had a field trip to the Orlando Museum of Art. It was a pretty interesting experience, and they do have a lot of really interesting pieces. The woman who helped give the class a tour was very nice and funny, and made it much more interesting. We didn't have lab that day. Instead, after the trip to the museum, we were allowed to go home.

Project 4: Pop Art

Today in lab, we did a project that mimics the style of Pop Art. You could either use a picture of yourself or do a picture of someone else. I chose Michael Jackson, one, because he's awesome, and two, because he's the "King of Pop." I just thought it was a fun, ironic take on things. I believe I did pretty well. I went into more detail (again) than the rest of the class, but I like how it turned out much more than the class examples.

I also received my grades for Advanced Computer Graphics. I will upload those in a separate post.

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 handprint.

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.

Thankfully, with all the new renovations, at least the classroom that we are in has carpeted floors, with tables stretched across the room and comfortable chairs. The tables have a place to plug in your laptop charger, and also have ethernet ports as well.

Update: For our first lab we had a take-home assignment. It was a virtual museum tour. There's a MS Word Document that has 20 questions and you have to find the answers on museum websites. It's pretty easy, just time consuming. I would definitely recommend doing this with a friend. It's a bit overkill by yourself.

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 ideas, so I went to have it printed. To my surprise, I was getting a lot of compliments on the piece; apparently a lot of people really liked the style and overall feel of the print. So, here's to hoping for another "A"! I've worked very hard this month, and I'm hoping to pull through with some good achievements. As for next month, I have Art History. So, that's it for now.

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 life:

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 details. In any case, this was the final painting. I've finished a day early, so thankfully I can start on my Final Project early this week. We are receiving the grades for our first Mini Project, so I'll be sure to post those once I get them.

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 days.

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 out, etc, so it should be very easy. We also had our first mini-project to create a little .gif animation that could be used either as a health bar or a loading screen. I chose a pretty simple theme:

Anyhow. Overall I suppose it was a pretty good day. I've already finished and turned in my tutorials, so I have that 3% of my grade covered. I finished my animation, so that's covered too. It looks like I'll be able to relax for sure with my little sister tomorrow at Disney World! Adios!

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, but I know a lot of other students get quite frustrated with the whole ordeal. If it wasn't for the extra thumbnails, I wouldn't have come up with the idea I used for my layout. I was originally going to do an ad based on time travel, but "Say Cheese" just seemed so much better. Basically I took my camera from Illustrator and imported it into Photoshop. I grabbed a couple of random images and did a LOT of editing to get them the way I wanted. Overall, I feel like the typography (while simple) is actually very effective. It supports the simplicity of the ad. The graphic combined with the type illustrates a cute concept that everyone is familiar with. Hip-hip-horr"A"!

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 allowed to even use Photoshop. That's right, this project is totally about giving us the confidence to do just about anything in Illustrator. After a grueling 65 hours, I'm finally very happy with my project and I'm prepared to turn it in. Unlike most people, I utilized my time very wisely. I stayed an extra four hours each day we had class and worked on my project, putting in another 6-12 hours at home (depending on the day). I felt like this project gave me a ton of hands-on experience and taught me how to utilize problem solving thinking skills. What I mean by problem solving skills, is there were two fundamental issues I had with my camera. The ridges, and the "EFFECT" text. The teachers insisted I used a flat black text (like the other images), but I saw an opportunity to learn and tried to produce something.

It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn close. For the ridges, the teachers told me to pen tool every little ridge. My defiance in the matter made me think outside the box. I experimented with tools they didn't teach us and produced a solid tutorial on how to do ridges like that in about 15 minutes. But again, I've worked on this project harder than I worked on anything last month. I feel like after all the work I've put into it, I've produced some excellent A-quality work.

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 to finish and turn in by the end of the month. We also had four projects that we did throughout the month.

Project 1: Self Portrait
The first project they had us do was a Self Portrait. It was supposed to be very basic, and we weren't allowed to use any gradients: just solid colors. Here is my self portrait, done completely in Illustrator. (We weren't allowed to use Photoshop.)

Project 2: Identity Mark
The second project was pretty easy. They gave us a list of random words. We were to choose three, and creative graphics for each that kind of went together. Black and White are my favorite colors (even thought they're technically 'hues'), so I went with very simple graphics for loneliness, rage and combustion. These had to be done in Illustrator.

Project 3: Movie Poster
The third project that we were to do was a movie poster. We could only use up to 3 colors plus white. We were given a list of movies to choose from. I chose Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange." I ended up doing two movie posters. The teacher allowed me to submit them both, since they were so different. Again, these were to be done solely in Illustrator.

Project 4: (Final Project)
For the final project we were to do an ad campaign. We were allowed to select from a list of companies. We also had to choose a slogan from a list given to us, and match up with a company. Needless to say, at a first glance, nothing looked like it "fit." They were trying to help us push our concept a little bit more. I ended up choosing the slogan "Some secrets are worth sharing." with the History Channel logo. We were finally allowed to use Photoshop, so I basically did a matte painting.

Overall, I felt that the month was pretty easy. The hardest thing was probably the self portrait. I put in about 8 hours. Though the Final took about 20 (total), I already knew Photoshop, so there wasn't that much trial and error.

Overview:
This month teaches you about the fundamental concepts of Illustrator and Photoshop.

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 in Game Art prior to Web Design for a year, I've already knocked all my core classes out of the way, so you won't be getting a review on that; but I hardly think you came here to read about my review on Physics, English Composition and Geometry, right?

I will do my best to elaborate on what we go through here at Full Sail so you can determine whether or not you'd like to go. I am in no way, shape or form hired by Full Sail. I'm just trying to help people who are doing research on the school. I will take pictures when I can of the classrooms I'm in and upload them to show you what kind of environment you'll be studying in.

Thanks for reading my blog and if it's helped, post a comment! Good morning, good afternoon and good night!

Read More