Talking about design today in class was unbelievably helpful in determining what I wanted to do to change the appearance of my blog. It was great learning about fonts and loading times in the first hour and a bit, and I really learned a lot about what these kinds of things will say about my site, and what will cause people to simply lose interest and move on. I also want to figure out how to make my paragraphs indent but I can’t remember how! More on that later I’m sure.
In the second portion of class we looked at other people’s blogs, and I was able to draw a lot of inspiration from that. Clearly, the people who volunteered were quite comfortable with their blogs, as I was most certainly not, but I just loved how much each of them really reflected the students who created them. This prompted me to realize that I can make myself proud of my site just as these people are of theirs. One thing that really stuck out to me during that discussion was how easy it was to figure out who these people were based on their blogs. I didn’t want people to think that I was lame and dull, based off of the design of my blog. So I got to work.
Though this might shock and dismay my teacher, Suzanne, I did end up entirely changing my theme. I wasn’t very happy with mine previously: I didn’t like how it looked very amateur, I didn’t like the pops of yellow, and while I thought the floral motif really reflected me and my aesthetic, the colours and the complexity really ended up dragging it down.
I ended up finding a theme that incorporated a social media menu so the buttons matched the aesthetic of my blog, but I kept it to three, so that load times wouldn’t be too high when people accessed the site via mobile devices. I also enjoyed the hierarchy and readability that came with the theme, though I’m not 100% happy with the fonts just yet.
Basically, I was struck with some serious inspiration today, and I ended up getting a lot closer to the blog that I’ve always envisioned for myself.
I hope you continue on and take PUB 201.