Lovely Geek Design

The Vendor Client Relationship

Cristina — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:08:48 +0000

This morning in class my teacher shared with us an awesome video that shows what it would be like if clients treated other professionals the way they treat web designers. It’s pretty funny, because if you’ve ever read Clients From Hell, you’ll recognize those clients in the video.

Blackout

Cristina — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:01:58 +0000

Today, Lovely Geek Design has gone black in support of Anti-SOPA Day.

“On Jan 24th, Congress will vote to pass internet censorship in the Senate, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. We need to kill the bill – PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House – to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity.” – SOPA Strike

Articles to Check Out:

We code hard in these cubicles!

Cristina — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:32:29 +0000

This gave me a good LOL tonight.

In other news, tomorrow begins the 23 week countdown till I become a college graduate. Goodbye social life!

Happy Q*Bee Blogging Day!

Cristina — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 16:45:56 +0000

In addition to Lovely Geek being revamped, my fellow Quilting Bee members should take notice that my quilt is updated with a new layout. I’ve been a MIA bee for quite sometime (boooo school), and I felt what better to celebrate Q*Bee Blog Day than to get a fresh start!

For those of you wondering what this “Quilting Bee” thing is, allow me to gush about this wonderful club. The Quilting Bee is an online pixeling club that has been around since 2000. The idea is to create a quilt page along with your own patch and trade patches with other members, thus putting together a quilt of traded patches. You can see my quilt as an example. In addition to trading patches with other members, there are monthly activities to participate in as well.

I have been a member of The Quilting Bee since 2004. A lot of my online friends have been made through this club. I’m so happy to be apart of this club, and I’m so grateful for all the wonderful friends I’ve made. If you’re not a member, consider joining!

Intermediate Motion Graphics

Cristina — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:00:32 +0000

Picking up right where Motion Graphics left off, I feel like I ended this quarter with more work that I’m proud of than the quarter before.

A lot of the stuff we did was silly little exercises, but one of them was to create a countdown; I chose to jazz it up a bit and do a countdown flip clock.

Then for our mid-term we had to do a title sequence or teaser trailer, so I did a teaser trailer for The Hobbit.

Based on the feedback I got on my mid-term project, I decided to do another title sequence and challenge myself further. I did a title sequence to Kill Bill.

I had a lot more fun in this class then I did in the beginning class last quarter, but I’m glad that I’m done with After Effects for now, hah!

Advanced Web Based Programming

Cristina — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:32 +0000

In my Advanced Web Based Programming we worked with PHP/MySQL and ultimately learned how to create a full blown membership site. Every week we learned a new technique which led up to having the necessary back-end parts for our membership site. Then it was just a matter of us choosing the kind of membership site we wanted and designing it.

I decided to re-purpose one of my favorite layouts from when I was blogging on Darth-Cena.net and did a VW Beetle Club of America site.

I had a lot of fun making this site, even though the club isn’t real, haha.

Revamping Lovely Geek

Cristina — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:39:55 +0000

For my Interface Design II class, I decided to use Lovely Geek as my mid-term and final project. As I mentioned at the end of Portfolio I, my site wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be. Here were the main goals I wanted to accomplish by the end of the quarter.

Upgrade coding to HTML5
Implement jQuery image slider on front page
Make design responsive
Design nicer page layout for showing work/portfolio

The first two, upgrading the code to HTML5 and implementing the jQuery slider on the front page, I took care of for my mid-term. For my final, I continued cleaning the site up and revamped my case studies page. As for making the design responsive, I didn’t get quite that far, mainly because I’m still getting my feet wet with it. I hope by the time I’m ready to graduate I can get my site that far.

Welcome to the brand new Lovely Geek!

Senior Project Development

Cristina — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 01:20:50 +0000

This class is one of two I have to take before I graduate. I’ll be taking the other class, Senior Project Studio my last quarter. Both of these classes require us to have a real client project to work on for the whole quarter. I ended up with two clients for this class.

My first initial client was a law office called Zappettini & Bradley. I was referred to them by Erin Dealey, whose web site I did last quarter as a project. I met with them back in August and they were willing to work with me for this class that started in October.

After meeting with them and accessing their site needs, I put together a site architecture, and then I began wireframing.

I met with them again after the first refined wireframe, and we went over changes. Based on those changes, I came up with a second refined wireframe, and then I began design and development.

The the goal of the site was to give them an online presence that was very simple but professional, and through this design I feel like that goal was definitely achieved. Visit the live site at ZBLawOffice.com.

Meanwhile, in the middle of the quarter I was waiting for content and more feedback on the structure of the law office site, I worked on the side with Ashley, a Media Arts & Animation student, who was getting ready to graduate and needed a web site for her portfolio. Luckily she had something already put together on a different site, but she wanted better control of it. My teacher and I convinced her to get her own hosting and use WordPress to manager her site. I showed her an article featuring 21 Amazing Free WordPress Themes and she chose the Shuttershot theme.

Due to portfolio requirements in her department we had to deviate slightly from the original functionality of the theme, which was having a slideshow of her work as the background, but in the end we made it work.

Creative Writing

Cristina — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:21:01 +0000

Part of my program required me to take an upper division humanities course, so I thought I would take something fun, like Creative Writing. Now I know for some people, writing isn’t fun, but back in high school when times were tough writing was my escape. I had a few stories I hadn’t touched since then, so I looked at this class as a way to improve my writing skills. I was also hoping to find the motivation to get back into writing, which I did.

For this class, we had to keep a journal for the whole quarter. I set mine up on one of my favorite blogging platforms, LiveJournal, as The Creative Geek. Every week we had to read a chapter from our book, Imaginative Writing: The Element of Craft, and respond to two gray box prompts as well as any reading.

In addition to that we would take any piece of writing we had, whether it was a revision of an in-class assignment, one of our own pieces, or a gray box prompt and expand it into two pages that would be read aloud the following week during class. Participating in our writing workshop every week really helped me grow as a writer and connect with other writers as well.

At the end of the quarter we had the option of putting together a writer’s portfolio, consisting of our best work for extra credit. We also had to recite a memorized poem.

I had a lot of fun in this class. Once I graduate I’m looking forward to have some time writing again.

The Last Two Quarters

Cristina — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:49:07 +0000

Today I registered for Winter 2012′s classes. By figuring out next quarter’s classes I’ve also determined what my last quarter at Art Institute will look like…

Winter 2012
MM3301 Interaction Design for Entertainment
MM3315 Emerging Technology
MM3321 eCommerce Site Design
MM3304 Database Concepts
Astronomy

Spring 2012
MM1141 Digital Typography
MM3312 Computer Based Training
MM4402 Senior Project Studio
FS497 Portfolio II
Art History

I can’t believe come June I’ll have a Bachelor of Science Degree in Web Design & Interactive Media. Then for the first time in 20 years, I won’t have school taking up my free time. Can’t wait!