Monthly Archives: November 2018

Essay 2: Online Publishing in Practice (A Reflective Essay)

Simon Fraser University’s course Publication of Self in Everyday Life provides an opportunity for students to explore what it means to be an online publisher and encourages students to create a place on the internet to write about their interests. I have been a movie fanatic for years, but I had never considered making a blog. I assumed no one was interested in hearing my thoughts, and also saw no benefit in making a website that may only have one viewer (presumably myself). As I began creating content, learning more about design, and thinking about online audiences, my fear of screaming into the void subsided. Even if I have a low number of readers, I discovered that my blog had other value. I discovered this blog could act as a portfolio (demonstrating my design and writing capabilities), and this blog could act as an inventory (a personal space for me to keep track of all the wonderful and horrible movies I watch). I see benefits beyond readership. The POSIEL course offered at SFU expanded my understanding of what it means to be an online publisher by forcing me to consider audience, design, and confidence in the online world.

In order to create a target audience, I considered my own experience with cinema and the quality of information I can relay to readers. My imagined audience is average movie-goers, ages eighteen to twenty-five, who are interested in film but are not professionals working in the field. I focused on the “average” movie-goer because I have no formal education or training in cinematography; I am an average movie-goer myself. I watch more movies than many people my age because I work at my local cinema, but I am a fanatic not a professional. I also targeted this audience because I find critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes to be more critical than user reviews. The more positive user reviews suggest average movie-goers are more optimistic about the films they are seeing, and I wanted to contribute to this positive outlook on movies.

The professional yet personal design of my blog is an attempt to better attract my desired audience. Mauvé Page suggested that rhythm “helps create predictability and order in your design,” and rhythm can be achieved through repetition of elements (Page). All of my movie reviews have the movie poster, movie name, a brief comment on the film, and a score (displayed as a percentage). The articles also have a repetitious feel by having the written review followed by the movie trailer. Mauvé also suggested people respond well to faces (Page), so I included an image of myself on my “About” page that seems friendly and approachable (and also indirectly tells my viewers I am around the same age as them). I also used contrast to make my homepage exciting and unique to me. Contrast can be achieved through colour, texture, size, and shapes (Page). My header image is the largest item on the page, and I used vibrant colours to make this image stand out further. Based on my Google Analytics, I can tell my readership is quite small and mostly comes from people in our class. On a positive note, the people in our class are a part of my target audience, so my imagined audience is my current audience.

One of the greatest challenges I encountered throughout this entire process was gaining confidence in my work. In high school, I won several creative writing contests within the school but few people read my pieces. Putting both my movie reviews and academic posts online made me feel vulnerable. There are real studies that show the severity of online harassment: “A Pew Research Center survey published two years ago found that 70% of 18-to-24-year-olds who use the Internet had experienced harassment, and 26% of women that age said they’d been stalked online” (Stein). It was nerve-racking posting a picture of myself on my “About” page along with posts that express my thoughts and emotions (especially in my process posts). I did not want to reveal my age or gender. Fortunately, I have only received one comment on my website and it was positive. To my surprise, a user commented on the post I felt most self-conscious about making public: my essay. My first and only comment was as follows: “Only wanna tell that this is very useful, thanks for taking your time to write this.” The comment surprised me because I thought no one would be interested in reading my essay. This single comment managed to increase my confidence and make me reflect more seriously about why I am afraid of posting my academic writing online. Erin Glass’ article “Why We Need Social Paper” looks critically at academic writing and asks readers to consider “what we learn about the practical power of speech when we practice speaking to nobody” (Glass). Glass emphasizes that “a public must not die every semester” (Glass), but that is exactly what happens as students simply hand in papers and never look at them again. As an English major, I have written many thoughtful essays about literature that may be of interest to my peers or others studying the novel under analysis, but those essays cannot benefit anyone if they remain a buried file on my laptop.

After spending many hours working on the design and content on my blog, I have no desire to stop writing. I finally feel like the design is complete and I can focus on just writing posts. I hope to expand on my blog to include more television shows and special features posts (which will likely include a “Best Holiday Movies” post shortly). At the beginning of the semester, I felt overwhelmed, frustrated and confused, but now I finally see the value of having this space of my own. Audrey Watters discusses the importance for students to have a “domain of one’s own” in her article “The Web We Need to Give Students.” Watters explains how personalized domains provide students with an opportunity to “build their own digital portfolio” (Watters). My blog is a piece of academic work I can take with me and continue to explore. It is a piece of my academic work that demonstrates my passion, writing, and understanding of design more thoroughly than any other essay or project I have created in the past four years. Online publishing does not necessarily require writing for a large public; online publishing can simply be a way of discussing your passions, demonstrating your knowledge, or creating something that is of interest to you.

 

 

Works cited

Developing Guidelines

As my site revolves around fashion, appropriate community guidelines should allow my audience to comment on my post to share their opinions and ideas. Of course, I would expect trolls on my site. There really is no way to prevent trolls from surfacing unless interaction was cut off completely. I will allow trolls to express how they feel about me, however, it has a high possibility of being deleted by myself as I do not want to promote argument on my blog. I want to create a platform where others interested in fashion can share their own opinions on my outfits and how they would alter it to suit their style. Although my self-esteem will be hurt by trolls, my main goal is for my audience to connect with myself and each other. I wish to create a safe platform for those interested in fashion can connect. For that to happen, comments must be open; which also opens the doors for trolls. However, I knew these are the correct guidelines for myself as receiving messages from trolls can help me grow into a stronger individual and learn and completely understand that the only people I need to please are those I care about. There really isn’t anything to implement for this to take place. All there needs to be is discourse in the comments of my blog posts.

 

featured image retrieved from https://i-h1.pinimg.com/564x/42/3e/e6/423ee66105bb21adce4db73e64e49f7f.jpg

Community Guidelines

I think my guidelines are pretty similar to bookriot’s guidelines 

“To support these goals, the following rules will be enforced. Users can be banned on the first offense for any of the following behaviors:

  • Name-calling, insulting, or otherwise attacking a contributor or another site user.
  • Posting irrelevant, abusive, or otherwise inappropriate content or comments.
  • Posting comments that question or denigrate the value of marginalized voices.
  • Posting self-promotional content.”

I would also include — guidelines which state:

  1. no reposting material/photos without proper credits
  2. do not impersonate someone else and comment/interact with account
  3. help report any unacceptable behaviour when present

 

These will be regulated by me and hopefully with the help of my followers. Users who do not follow guidelines will be warned and then blocked if no changes are implemented.

COMME des*

I recently noticed on Instagram that a bunch of people are using this one template where their photos are placed in a vintage frame. I found out the app was called unfold and proceeded to download it myself. Sadly, you do have to pay for the template bundles but all of them are under $3.00. I think that’s pretty good. To support the designers, I purchased two bundles myself; the one with the vintage frames and a new one that just came out recently. I was contemplating whether I should buy these frames at first because I can easily create them myself but I figured they were created for accessibility in the first place. Unfold is also a very simple app to use. It would be a lot faster for me to use the app than to create it myself.

I tried using the template in a style I have been seeing often on social media. I think it worked out in the end. I am going to admit that I like the featured image more than the layout here though.

 

 

Anyways, onto the fit. I’m wearing the Gwyneth sweater from Aritzia tucked into my TopShop mom jeans. add more dimension to the sweater? I don’t know if that made sense haha. My mom jeans don’t even look like mom jeans on me. I hate it when that happens. It’s sooo hard for me to find jeans that actually fit my legs like mom jeans. Oh well .. I’ll find a pair someday. I finished my outfit off with my black CDG chucks.

 

That’s all I have for today loves!

My End of Semester Motivation Slump

It’s that time of year again! (No, I’m not talking about Christmas)

It’s time for term papers, finals, and an unbearable amount of stress. There’s no better way to get into the holiday spirit than by spending all of your time and energy focusing on school, right?

For real though, the end of each semester is always the absolute worst. As an English major, I always have multiple term papers and at least one final exam. This semester, I have three research papers, which I hate writing because finding journal articles is super difficult and time consuming, and I’d rather just write a simple essay analyzing the text. To make matters worse, all of my papers are due around the same time (as usual), so I have to scramble to get them all done. I am currently on the verge of a breakdown because of all the work I have to do, and this isn’t even counting the final I have for my online class, which I am super behind in because it’s so boring that I’ve just been putting it off for the last month (which I bitterly regret now).

As my general motivation continues to drop every semester, so does my motivation at the end of each semester. It’s been three months, so the last thing I want to do at the very end of it is write a bunch of papers and study for exams. I’m already completely burnt out at this point and have very little energy left to give, so I can’t be expected to do my best work. I tend to write papers as quickly as possible and only do minimal editing because I’m so done with the semester that I don’t care anymore and just want it to be over. I know I should be working my hardest at the end of each semester, and technically I do (because I have the most work to complete at that point), but I don’t put in as much effort as I do earlier on in the semester when I’m not totally dead inside.

My lack of motivation at the end of each semester is exacerbated by my tendency to procrastinate, so in addition to not wanting to write a bunch of essays, I also tend to put them off to the last minute. I say that I won’t do this every semester, and yet here I am in the same situation I’ve been in at the end of every semester of my degree. You would think that I would’ve learned by now, but apparently not. In fact, I think it’s gotten worse. This semester is a prime example of that, as I haven’t even started my biggest term paper and it’s due in a week. I had plenty of time to work on it earlier, as I had very little homework the last few weeks, but instead of getting a head start on any or all of my papers, I just watched YouTube videos and hungout with my boyfriend. I wish that I hadn’t been so lazy in that last few weeks, because if that was the case, I could have been finished my term papers by now (okay, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but I’d have a lot more work done for sure).

Now is the point when I’m supposed to offer advice for motivating yourself and not procrastinating in the last few weeks of school, but, as you can probably tell, I’m not in much of a position to be giving anyone advice. All I can say is that you do not want to be in my position right now, because I’m literally spending all day every day doing homework, so try your best to work on it earlier. The sooner you finish, the sooner you can relax and just watch Netflix all day (or go out if you actually have a life).

Right now I’m trying to get all my papers done as quickly as possible because once this semester is over, I can spend all my time doing Christmassy things, like listening to Christmas music, watching cheesy Hallmark movies and classic Christmas movies from my childhood, and dragging my boyfriend and friends to as many Christmas events as possible. I suppose having something so great to look forward to makes it a bit easier to get all this work done.

Essay Two – Blog Reflection

At the beginning of the semester when I was deciding on the topic for my blog, I was torn between travelling and hockey. I asked myself a fundamental question – why? Although I grew up like every other kid playing street hockey and buying and trading hockey cards with my friends, I always wanted a place to express my ideas and opinions and receive feedback and suggestions from like-minded people. Since I constantly found myself being approached by others for an opinion on what’s going on with different teams, players and hockey, in general, I decided to choose hockey over travelling. I did not want to limit myself to a specific team as I planned to discuss a variety of aspects within the sport. Also, I tried to avoid the potential for any issues similar to that of Matt Shea’s where some of his subscribers felt neglected when he was posting content that was “different.” However, I narrowed the primary focus of my blog to three aspects in particular. They are outlined below in my infographic.

I created this blog hoping that it would act as a non-political platform for hockey fans to connect. I planned to accomplish this by writing weekly posts about a variety of relevant topics in the hockey world to encourage readership. I anticipated that it would encourage hockey fans to discuss and debate opposing views openly. I intended to accomplish this by encouraging fans to share their thoughts and opinions at the end of each post and hoped to spark a conversation between them.

I imagined my public to be a sports-centric audience with a particular interest in hockey; this further branched into general sports/hockey fans, fans of specific teams, analysts, hockey players, fans of the NHL video game series and my friends and family. I have confirmed that my imagined audience is also my real audience by analyzing my followers on social media and by using Google Analytics. A primary example is Zach Boychuk who is a retired NHLer that follows me on Twitter.

My audience has strongly influenced my editorial decisions as I have tailored my content for them, while attempting to obtain additional exposure by writing about different aspects of the game. For instance, I have written about the video game NHL 19 and its Hockey Ultimate Team mode. I have also written about the San Jose Sharks, but recently I analyzed the local Vancouver Canucks from multiple angles including management and specific players. I believe that writing from these different angles will assist in developing new audiences while continuing to engage current readers. After receiving comments from Suzanne and my peers regarding my posts I have been adding to a long list of content to write about. These comments get me thinking and usually inspires me with some topics to write about in the future. I have spent the past six weeks rebuilding the Montreal Canadiens, as Suzanne requested, and recently led them to their first Stanley Cup since 1993 in the simulation.

Furthermore, I have catered my design decisions for my audience. I created a cool vibe to represent the atmosphere at a hockey game by using a shade of blue throughout my blog. I used light grey as the background colour to represent a sheet of ice. The header features clipart representing hockey so that readers know what to anticipate on my blog. To create familiarity for my audience, I used colours that are featured in the NHL’s logo in designing my website name. To ensure that my content was easily accessible, I made sure that my theme would enable me to add a featured image with the title and a brief excerpt with a read more and leave a comment button. This reels readers in and encourages them to engage with the content and comments from others. The sidebar adds to the accessibility as it conveniently links to my social media while showing viewers the most recent posts and comments, so they can quickly get caught up on what has been posted since their last visit.

The central value proposition of my blog is that I provide a unique perspective on different aspects of hockey for my public; this is similar to Don Cherry’s Coach’s Corner. I have received comments that are what John Suler (n.d.) describes as “solipsistic introjection.” Many hockey fans follow Don Cherry, and some have suggested that they assign a similar voice and image to my content. Moreover, in the future when my readership increases, I may consider creating value for hockey equipment companies by reviewing their products. While this is something to consider companies may be anticipating a positive review whereas my opinion may be the complete opposite. However, if I were to go this route, I would also feature affiliate marketing by providing readers with links to purchase the equipment.

Google Analytics showed that most of my audience is situated in the lower mainland, however, one reader is from Poland. I am hoping to expand readership globally by growing my brand on social media. Surprisingly, I also have more new visitors compared to returning visitors. I believe that this will be beneficial as I continue to grow my blog, but, of course, I hope that these new visitors will return in the future. Again, analytics will assist in this regard. The ability to track which pages are viewed the most is very helpful as it shows me what viewers are reading and which content I should be publishing more or less of. Also, due to the ability to track browsers, operating systems, devices, and their screen resolutions I will now be able to optimize my blog for these specific viewers. The user flow report provided me with an overview of how users navigate my blog – where they go first, what they do next and where they drop off. Understanding these elements will be beneficial to potentially re-organize my content. If viewers are flocking to a particular order when they view content, I believe that this could be a sign to re-order my blog to their convenience. In doing so, I will have to avoid “chasing a robotic approach to a human connection” as per Travis Gertz (2015).

Lastly, I will be continuing my blog past this semester and plan on elaborating my online presence by posting my written content on YouTube as a video. In doing so, I will link back to my blog so that viewers have multiple options to receive my content. I also plan on being more active on my social media channels during hockey games as I have found my audience to be active during these times. This will enable “new members to join as the old fade away” as mentioned by Erin Glass (2015).

References

Gertz, T. (2015, July 15). Design machines. Retrieved from https://louderthanten.com/coax/design-machines
Glass, E. (2015, December 11). Why we need Social Paper. Retrieved from https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/papers/45249/
Suler, J. (n.d.). The Online Disinhibition Effect. Retrieved from http://truecenterpublishing.com/psycyber/disinhibit.html

Week 12: Community Guidelines

This blog was created to discuss films critically, and while different perspectives are welcome, certain comments will not be permitted on this website. Please consider the following before leaving a comment on this website:

  • Comments that contribute to discussions around the work under review are welcome (including respectful disagreements), but irrelevant comments, personal attacks (against the writer or other users), and recurring trolling will not be tolerated.
    This website was created with the intention of providing reviews for movies and television shows. The content is supposed to be fun and informative, not vicious or disrespectful.
  • Racism, sexism, homophobia, and other hate speech is not tolerated under any circumstances.
    If a film deals with sensitive subject matter, the conversation that follows should still be considerate and respectful. Some films may focus on a variety of different characters. This should be celebrated, not attacked. Comments should be respectful towards writers, users, and anyone featured in the film.
  • Spam and advertisements will be removed.
    If you wish to share a link for your own movie review blog, go ahead! Post it in the comments and start more discussion. Want people to buy something from your website? Sorry, this isn’t the place for you. Advertisements and general spam will be removed because it does not contribute to the purpose of this blog.
  • Content will be removed if it can put me in legal jeopardy.
    No explicit content, defamatory postings, libelous comments (to name a few). Think about what you are posting.

Generally, comments that are relevant and respectful will be permitted without any problems. Comments that conflict with our guidelines will be removed, but the user may be asked for clarification prior to removal if there is potential for confusion. Be mature, be considerate, and be kind to one another.

Self-Assessment (5%)

Throughout this course, I have learned an abundance of strategies that can be used to create a successful blog. Although I haven’t got as many views, I have to start somewhere. Using a social media platform is definitely more effective than a website as people are on their phones for hours in a day. If I were to continue my blog, I would attempt to grow my Instagram follower base to gain more engagements. If more people look at my Instagram page, they could possibly click the link to my blog. I would give myself a 4 for my self-assessment. At the beginning of the course, I had no problems with keeping up with the workload just because the course load for my other classes was also pretty light at the time. Near the middle, however, is where I began to fall off. I became swamped with projects and I became more inactive. Though I was consistently taking pictures of my outfits. I began to pick it up near the end, but page views went down significantly as I was not as active.

Aside from having a well-designed blog, consistently posting is just as important as ensuring your blog is appealing and having interesting content. By enrolling in this course, I had to push myself to blog about what I am passionate about. Style. If it wasn’t required in this course to start a blog, I would have never started it. My blog required me to become more comfortable in front of the camera and now I can say I am; not completely comfortable, but more than I was before. I want to take this experience and bring it to my Instagram. I want to upload more frequently and upload content that I like. I’m one of those people who cares about what my feed looks like, but with the experience, I got from being in front of the camera, I’m more open to more options now.

Week 12 – My all time motto “No Pain, No Gain”

“No Pain, No Gain”

It is the motto that motivates me all the time. It inspired me in bodybuilding, motivate me in studying, alerts me when I am too comforted in life. When I was 16, 17, I was a skinny guy in school. Back then I was in the school basketball team, I spent most of my time on training and practice. In order to improve my physique in court, I started to workout at the gym. At first, I went to the gym twice a week. I always thought I would rather go on court practice than go to the gym until my first injury happened. That was a regular season game, I stole the ball from the opponent and attempted a layup, suddenly, a man on the side bumped into me and bumped me out to the court. I lost balance and fall into the ground, eventually, I hurt my legs and arms. I took a long break to recover from injury. At that point, I realized that I need to take workout seriously and started my training programme. 

I started to work out at a small community gym. It was a good place to start the workout, no one was there, a simple and quiet place to let me concentrate my workout. I was struggling so much at the beginning, muscle pain and sore all over my body. The pain from the muscle stopped me from going to the gym every time, but I kept telling myself, “NO PAIN, NO GAIN”. It is the key to achieve anything, not only in bodybuilding but also as a person a general. Nothing’s can stop you from doing what you love as long as you put you afford on it, work your ass off it. Your result will definitely come to you. There is no shortcut in bodybuilding, actually, in everything. The only way to success is to dedicate yourself to do what you aim to do. You have to push yourself to the limit, makes up your mind, prepare your self and face the challenge. Remember, “NO PAIN, NO GAIN”.

Here are some quote that I use to motivate my self:

“Train Harder and Grow Bigger” – 8x Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman 

“What we face may look insurmountable, but what I learned is that we are always stronger than we know” – 7x Mr. Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger

“What hurts today, Makes you stronger tomorrow” – 4x Mr. Olympia          Jay Cutler

Process Post 12 (Community Guidelines)

Community guidelines for any social media platform is an important element to have in order to lessen the risk of possible inappropriate behaviour with your site. For this week’s process post, we were to develop our own community guidelines and think of how we would implement them.

My site and its content can be a very touchy subject as it deals with very real and personal issues that many individuals have to face on a day to day basis. The content can also be different for those who may not be comfortable yet with such diversity and it may either clash with certain beliefs or challenge their thinking. It is important that my blog does not force any opinions, but merely highlights and brings to attention the importance of having diverse narratives and identities published online.

Four core community guidelines could go as follows (more could be added with further development of the blog):

  1. Create a Welcoming Space

Here, There stresses on diversity and opening up to listening and understanding multiple narratives, thus, it is important that the site creates an open and welcome space for all voices. By not offering a welcoming space, we are inhibiting the ability of those who may feel marginalized or already silenced to not be able to speak up and feel included within the discourse. No matter where someone may come from or who they may be, by creating an open space, Here, There will be able to carry out its objective of challenging hegemony and the “single narrative”.

2. No Hateful Comments

As a space that opens up to topics about issues regarding race, gender, and sexuality, topics can sometimes be very personal. As a space that encourages the freedom of speech, it is key to note that Here, There will carefully look at separating free speech from hate speech. We each have a perspective on how we view the world, but it is important to understand that hateful comments will not be tolerated and often come with negative repercussions.

3. Outright Discrimination Will Not be Tolerated

In conjunction with the second guideline, it is crucial that users do not make comments or post content that is discriminatory. As a blog that deals with the marginalized, discrimination is not uncommon for certain groups of people, so, having a no discrimination policy will help reduce what many have to face on a day to day basis.

4. Privacy

It is crucial for Here, There to make it aware that all comments and activity from users will be kept confidential. As the topics discussed can enter very complex and complicated situations that some may feel uncomfortable or uneasy telling, it will be the utmost importance to keep this information private – unless given permission by the individual to publish and share.

But How Will It Be Implemented?

The community guidelines for Here, There, would be a separate page to click at the top so that it is apparent and visible for visitors to the site. It will also be linked at the footer of the site as well so that when scrolling and navigating, it is easy and obvious to read and get to. The community guidelines will continue to grow as I learn from my audience as well as continue to learn of what constitutes a good blog of my subject matter.

But How Do We Regulate This?

The importance of having community guidelines is not to add heightened censorship to the site, but to enforce certain rules to minimize certain actions that will have negative implications towards the blog and its users. It will be key to have these guidelines carefully looked at so as not to create problems regarding the freedom of speech. Additional community guidelines that would be implemented would have to go under careful analysis to make sure that it continues to provide an open space for all, but still enforces the reduction of hateful and discriminatory behaviour and action.

 

My Publishing Experience

I have loved writing ever since I was a child, and for most of my life, it has been a dream of mine to become some kind of writer, whether it be an author, screenwriter, or journalist. I have wanted to create a blog for several years now, as I thought it would be both fun and beneficial to create a space where my writing could live. I hoped to use it to express my thoughts, improve my writing, create an audience that could follow me on my future endeavours, and perhaps make some money doing what I love. I have not accomplished all of these goals yet, but my blog is still new, so I have plenty of time to work towards them.

I was both apprehensive and excited to create my own blog. I decided early on that I wanted it to be a personal blog, as that gives me more freedom to write about various subjects and allows me to write essays about my thoughts and experiences while showing off my writing skills. I aimed for an audience of people around my age, and while many of my blog posts are about the student experience, I want my blog to be accessible for those who are not in school as well, as I want to talk about the young adult experience. My idea of what I want my audience or public to be lines up with Michael Warner’s in “Publics and Counterpublics”, as he states, “A public is a relation among strangers”, and I want my blog to be a place where people can read about experiences similar to their own and feel a sense of connection with them. I also want my public to be a “social space” as described by Warner, as I want to foster a sense of community among my readers and give them a space where they can discuss their own experiences and struggles.

I changed the theme of my blog several times before deciding on my current theme, as I initially wanted something very simple so I could focus on my content, but I was unhappy with the first few themes I tried and wanted something more visually appealing. Travis Gertz discusses the importance of design in his article “Design Machines: How to Survive the Digital Apocalypse”, and his insights convinced me to place more emphasis on the design of my blog, as it is what attracts readers. Gertz believes that a website’s layout should “[connect] the content to the medium”, and that connection is what I want to achieve. I chose a simple, easy to navigate theme that emphasizes and works well with my content. I have a lot of white space on my blog, but my header picture, Instagram feed, and blog post images contrast it. The blog post images also draw attention to the posts themselves and connect to their topics. Gertz emphasizes the relationship between design and content, stating, “[D]esign augments the message of the content”, so I am trying to connect my content to my design to create a uniform feel to my blog. My header image is a picture of clouds, which connects nicely with my blog’s title. I want to make it clear as soon as people visit my homepage that I have put a lot of time and effort into the design of my blog, and that the design quality reflects the quality of the content.

I intend to continue blogging after this course, and I am planning to take information from lectures and readings into account as I maintain and develop my online presence. The course reading “Make Your Thing” by Jesse Thorn has many helpful insights for finding success in independent media, but the one that is most useful in my current situation is “Keep Your Legs Moving”, as with the course ending, I need to keep working hard to maintain my blog and its audience. I intend to continue posting on my blog at least once a week, perhaps even more during school breaks. I would also like to work on cultivating my social media presence and expanding the reach of my blog’s Instagram account. Most of my readers have come from my Instagram, so I plan to post on it more often to attract people to my blog. Ideally, I would like to post on it at least twice a week, although I realize that will be difficult while I am in school. Regardless, I want to post on my Instagram every time I post on my blog to alert viewers of new posts. I would also like to post pictures of myself, where I go, and what I do on my Instagram, so my audience can get a sense of who I am as a person and follow my adventures through multiple channels. Another goal of mine is to gain enough viewers to be able to make money from my blog, whether it be from Google ads, affiliate marketing, or sponsored posts on my blog or Instagram. I would love to be able to support myself doing something that I love, whether it be running my blog or becoming a journalist, author, or screenwriter because of my blog’s success. Regardless of what the future holds, I am excited to continue this journey and see what lies ahead.

 

Works Cited

Gertz, Travis. “Design Machines: How to Survive the Digital Apocalypse”. Louder Than Ten.

            10 Jul. 2015, https://louderthanten.com/coax/design-machines. Accessed 23 Nov. 2018.

Thorn, Jesse. “Make Your Thing”. Transom. 11 Apr. 2012, https://transom.org/2012/jesse-thorn-

            make-your-thing/. Accessed 23 Nov. 2018.

Warner, Michael. “Publics and Counterpublics”. Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 88, no. 4,

            Nov. 2002, pp. 413-425, http://knowledgepublic.pbworks.com/f/warnerPubCounterP.pdf.

            Accessed 23 Nov. 2018.

Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

This book’s title gives a nod to female confidence, and is the subject of its penultimate chapter. Kaling’s insights on the complications of being a confident woman come from lived experience; she routinely has to answer men when they ask her where she gets her confidence, as if she doesn’t look like someone who should possess confidence and therefore has to explain herself. However, Kaling relays the story of being asked where she gets her confidence by a young Indian girl, who, with candor, foregrounded her own struggle with insecurity. This last chapter is an essay replying to that question, an answer she wishes she could have given at the time. “Confidence is just entitlement… and entitlement is simply the belief that you deserve something”, she writes (452). Hard work certainly contributes to that belief, as well as courage. But, Kaling calls attention to the ways in which this severe emphasis on the confidence of young girls likely complicates their accessibility to confidence.

I remember as a teenager trying to convince my mom that she should give me money for good grades, because all of my friends got money from their parents for getting A’s. She laughed in my face. “Why would I give you money for something that you are capable of doing? That would just mean that I don’t believe you can do it without some sort of reward”. At least it was something along those lines; it was a long time ago. Kaling closes with this:

“So, if that girl from the panel is reading this, I would like to say to her: Hi, it’s Mindy Kaling. I’m sorry I let you down. The thing is, I’m in my mid-thirties and I was wearing my Spanx for fourteen hours straight. You’ll understand when you’re older. Here’s how I think you can get your confidence back, kid: Work hard, know your shit, show your shit, and then feel entitled. Listen to no one except the two smartest and kindest adults you know, and that doesn’t always mean your parents. If you do that, you will be fine. Now, excuse me, I need to lie down and watch Sheldon” (464).

I should have warned against spoilers. I just gave the whole book away.

Like I said in my last review, Kaling’s life experiences are couched in friendships that bring meaning to these experiences: female friendships, colleague friendships, and relationships that are not easily defined and present more like a best friend-life mate hybrid like the one she shares with B.J. Novak. Consequently, reading Kaling – forgive me for being cliche – is a lot like listening to your funniest friend talk about quintessential LA life, including the time she offended an entire room of white anti-vaxxer moms. Kaling calls attention to the ways in which friendships are more similar to romantic relationships than we think. We have flings, we feel the spark of connection. She has a language for something that remains largely language-less: friendship breakups. Maybe this can be attributed to a societal framework that reveres romantic relationships as the most important relationships one can have. The passion, fizzling out or explosive end of a friendship goes largely unprocessed in our romance obsessed culture.

While most of Kaling’s material is light-hearted and witty, her essays have a strong politicized thread running through them. She discusses the ways in which the media treat her body like a public text that can be read and written about – what it’s like to be a woman in the public eye. She speaks candidly and honestly about the marginalization she experiences however much she might love her life.

“Work hard, know your shit, show your shit, and then feel entitled.“

My Process of Creating a Space for Ethical Reading and Reflection

Before I created my site for PUB 101, I knew I wanted to write. I considered writing about podcasts, records and live music. I then thought about a common class assignment: reading responses – using another text as a mirror to inform self study and thus, my own writing. A concept that kept surfacing for me elsewhere in my life was the importance academically and personally to turn inward and examine my own thought patterns, proneness and ultimately, social position. This emphasis for me was largely motivated by Professor Tasha Hubbard’s discussion during “The Secret Path” panel; “The Secret Path” is a short film created by Gord Downie that tells the story of Chanie Wenjack, a child who died while trying to escape residential school. In the case of First Nations studies, she says that Indigenous people are so often the object of a gaze, and students have the responsibility to turn that gaze back onto themselves. In essence, my personal project within my overarching academic one of creating this site, was to engage with this idea of practicing ethical reading. That is, “read things that do not give [me] the immediate thrill of recognition” as well as reading material that makes me feel seen and heard (McGregor). As far as I can tell, my audience is full of readers, and my editorial, design and content reflect that. My writing reads much like the genre that I am engaging with – I incorporate scholarly findings as well as personal reflection and connection with the text. My posts are text-based and include only pictures of the book cover and the author. I was quite cognizant of the need to make the material palatable while still maintaining integrity with the information I wanted to convey. In that sense, my content is not for everyone; it is for those who like to read and for those who like to engage reflectively with material that can be tough to do so with.

I can honestly say that I spent a proportionate amount of time on design and content, respectively, which I wasn’t expecting at the beginning of this project. I was expecting to choose a simple – possibly boring – theme that was capable of facilitating my writing and not spend too much time fussing over customization. I was really mistaken about that. A course reading by Travis Gertz made it functionally impossible for me to ignore design; he makes a robust case for design and content being representative of one another. In short, a successful and engaging website has content that doesn’t outshine the design and vice versa. I spent a lot of time fooling around on my CSS hoping to make things work and – for the most part – I did!

Debbie Chachra’s article Why I Am Not a Maker calls attention to forms of valuable work that are often gendered and rarely recognized, which helps me to explain the value I am adding to the online community. While ‘making’ things is often masculinized work, other work that involves creativity – creation of spaces for learning, nurturing, critique – is often feminized and is therefore seen as markedly less valuable. This work – sometimes referred to as invisible – is what excites me. Chachra writes: “as an educator… all of the actual change, the actual effects, are at the interface between me as an educator, my students, and the learning experiences I design for them”. I see my academic and personal writing providing similar value to the online community: creating a space between texts in which reflection and reconsideration is encouraged and held up as necessary work. This work is necessary for students engaging in scholarly practices as well as anyone who is involved in a society that requires the dismantling of oppressive structures.

Looking forward, I do want to continue blogging. I have really enjoyed having a writing schedule and having friends and peers comment. I often suffer from imposter syndrome – feeling like I’m actually just not that good at writing and I should just leave it to the real writers. However, this project has really boosted my confidence with respect to sharing my work. I’ve had a few people comment and say that they were unaware that writing was something that I even did and that they’re glad that I’ve made some work public. I have a goal to post at least once a month and to elaborate my online presence by sharing some of my own personal essays. Jesse Thorn gives an inspiring outline of principles to be considered for those interested in creating successful publications. The principle I want focus on specifically is “Keep [my] legs moving”. The most valuable part of this project for me has been writing almost constantly and finding a voice through that process.

I am grateful for this experience and hope to continue to provide a space where readers increasingly feel free to share, challenge and critique.

INTERVIEW: Eleven — Amanda Franzén, Curious future Graphic Designer

Amanda Franzén

Curious future Graphic Designer

  • Age: 22 years old, but I do sometimes feel like I am 43 but at other times 12, so I really do think that age is just a number.
  • Job situation:  Soon to be looking for a job, I’ll have my Bachelor Degree in June 2019, major in Graphic Design. Hire me!
  • Best memory with design: This is probably the one question most people have complained about being a “hard” one, and now that I’m going to answer it myself: I’m kind of excited! I have many funny and great memories with design, especially after I started my studies to become a Graphic Designer. We had plenty of different assignments that have been amazing and fun, but often those assignment have been a lot more than just a school assignment. Study something is about taking in and reflect about a fact or action, to actually let the information become something useful. This is what school have been for me, more or less. But I have also worked on different small project for different customers, and those project have almost given me more useful information about the branch of Graphic design than school could ever do. So my best memory have to come from exactly that: a small project I did a year ago from todays date. I was suppose to help a label company with creating four different types of beer labels that later would be used at a big label fair in one of Swedens bigger cities, Gothenburg. Fot he label company, the design of the labels wasn’t the most important part, but for them it was all about showing future customers what different kinds of material and printing techniques they could. I saw this as an opportunity to use the design as a further step to show their techniques, not only should the customers see the material, they should feel it. My best memory — right now — with design was when the label company gave me the finished result of the labeled beer bottle and it looked exactly as I wanted it to look like!
  • Favourite font/typeface: Right now I’m very found of the typeface FreightText Pro for body text and DIN Light 2014 for headings. But my favourites tend to change almost every single week.

As a future graphic designer, what would be my biggest expectations and also scares for the future? To soon be done with my bachelors degree and that I’m basically soon to be a Graphic Designer even on paper, both makes me very excited but a bit scared. Soon I will face the branch that is one of the most competitive ones out there, and the ones that I compete against for jobs and projects will often be friends from school or other assignments I’ve done through my studies. My absolute biggest expectations are the freedom I will have to be creative, all the possibilities to actually work with something that I will enjoy and take grate pleasure in doing. One of the biggest scares is, what I’ve understood after these weeks of interviews, to find myself out there, not being hired or not getting a job. But what is the most important thing to remember in those situations, I guess, is to keep my cool and always keep on fighting, never settling. To believe in my abilities and have trust in my creativity will be my greatest powers when looking for a job.

How would I describe the blog as a whole, as a project? Design choices: I found my theme pretty early on, called Catch. It’s build up by moving blocks, so every new post creates a new slide on the page. This was very suitable for the cause of my blog I had in mind, a gallery filled with different female designers. I’ve always been very impressed by different designers and their creativity, and as I’m soon to be one of them, I had an urge to know more. The design of the blog was therefor important for me, I wanted to create a platform where the designers would want to be a part of, a place where they would like to be seen. Even though I’ve chose to only interview female designers, I didn’t want the design of the blog to be gendered. Therefore I chose the colors grey (#474747) and a golden yellow (#fbcc33). For me, neither of these colors belong to any certain gender, just the way I wanted it to be.  Process: When I started the blog, I had an okay clear picture of how the blog would look and work. But standing here today, close to the end of this course, the evolution of the blog proves just how little I did know of having a blog and creating a network. From start my posts were quite flat and I used very little differences to separate one interview from the other. Throughout peer reviews I was helped with great ideas to make the posts more personal, with such an easy thing as making every header for the interviews with a sample picture from the interviewed designer. Now the post went from kind of anonymous to personal for every and each designer.  Now my idea of creating a gallery was fulfilled. What about the future?  I will not continue to post blogposts and interview designers, I believe the cause of my blog have been fulfilled. But I’m not finished with the platform as an opportunity to be seen. I want to reinvent the blog as an opportunity to us it as a personal portfolio. I believe that the platform I have created will be the perfect place for me to build my own “sales pitch” and be seen as a designer.

What would be my best tips for someone going through the same phase? To realise that you are getting closer and closer to actually growing up and that you are soon to be expected to be a grown up with a job and responsibilities is a very frightening thought. Especially if you are like me and live for the greater moments and what’s happening right now. But my absolut best tips for you is not to stop living in the moment and not to stop dreaming, and actually, but to never  grow up fully. For me, my inner child have always been one of my greatest strengths, my ability to not take everything way to literal and black and white, but my power to use colours and imagination. I’m not saying that you should never act like an adult, but you should never lose your inner child. Because we all have one, some of us closer than others, that inner kid that loves to play.

ESSAY 2: The Nordic Graphic Design — The Online Publisher

When I started the blog, I had an okay clear picture of how the blog would look and work. But standing here today, close to the end of this course, the evolution of the blog proves just how little I did know of having a blog and creating a platform. My experience as an online publisher have been a new experience for me. Even though I have been online for many years now, more than I thought when I started counting, the online persona as a publisher is new. Now I’m not only myself writing comments on a photo or article, but now I have a whole new responsibility as a creator making my posts not only readable but interesting. I figured that I wanted to use this new liability as a publisher to actually do something I would have appreciate as a reader. Right now I am in a position in my life whereas I’m a bit confused about what I really want to do. I have less then a year left on my studies and after that I have to grow up and be an adult. Growing up and be an adult is for me to have direct responsibility over others at maybe a workplace or even in your friendships, why I regard myself not being a 100% grown up right now is because the choices I make and do almost only affect myself. So I wanted to make this blog a sort of guide or maybe an inspiration for my future self, I wanted to go deep down and research the branch of graphical designers.

Reading the article Survival Strategies for Local Journalism by Vauhini Vara I got inspired. She talk about the fight the local journalism have with actually being profitable, and how advertisement sometimes isn’t enough to keep it running. Today you need a lot to keep a local newspaper running, and even in such a big city as San Fransisco couldn’t be enough. This made me think a lot about my actual plan for my blog. Do I want it to be a profitable one or do I only want to do it as a school project? When I decided to make the blog to an online gallery for female nordic graphic designers, the plan got a bit clearer: Make it a place worth your visit and not a moneymaker. I read a post called How To Start a Blog – Beginner’s Guide for 2018 by Jessica Knapp, mostly for fun to get inspiration but it actually got me thinking a lot on what the blog itself can and probably would be: a platform for your own business. I wanted to create something that could be of use for people in the same ”confused about the future” situation that I’m in — and looking back now, I truly hope that I did achieve just that.

As an online publisher, I have tried to be a responsible publisher of others speech. Since my posts have been interviews, the second goal (after the first one being inspiring myself and others) have been to give all these amazing designers a platform to be visible. In the article The man who studies the spread of ignorance by Georgina Kenyon the ignorance of today is being discussed. Kenyon mentions the internet as one of the things that is helping to propagate ignorance as it is a place where everyone have a chance to be their own expert, which make the prey for powerful interests wishing to deliberately spread ignorance pretty easy. When creating my blog and my online persona as a publisher, I realised I wanted to use the internet kind of in that way, but not exactly. I wanted to give the interviewed designer a spot where they could act as experts and spread their knowledge. As the one in charge of publishing the interviews, I as a person was in charge of spreading there expertise. Does this make me just as Kenyon describes? One speeding ignorance, or is it just the opposite? I would say the opposite. As the ones being interviewed actually do have expertise in what they are being questioned about, I would say my blog is fighting against the internet ignorance and instead tries to fill it with knowledge.

James Bridle discuss the phenomenon of the internet being accessible for everyone in his short essay Something is wrong on the internet. Bridle talk abut the internet being filled with material bad for one group in particular, kids, that have access to see everything. He links multiple examples of videos on Youtube which are made for kids that are highly inappropriate. Even though my blog doesn’t target kids as readers, the essay got me thinking about who really have been visiting my blog and if my content can be seen as appropriate. With Google Analytics I can check how many that have read and how long they actually stayed on my website. Using this data, I can check how appreciated my blog is with my readers. Even if the numbers aren’t extremely high, I can still make out that visitors coming to tNGD to read, actually do just that: read. For me that is the biggest achievement I could aver have asked for when creating the blog: actually having people visiting and appreciating my interviews.

I am pretty sure that I will not continue to post blogposts and continually interview designers, I believe the cause of my blog have been fulfilled. But I’m not finished with the platform as an opportunity to be seen and, of course, visible on the World Wide Web in a way I can by myself decide. My plan for the blog is to reinvent it as a future portfolio. I believe that the platform I have created will be the perfect place for me to build my own “sales pitch” and be seen as a designer. Just as all the amazing female designers I’ve interviewed here, hopefully I will take place right beside them for a more female featured design.

Transmedia Integration

I took advantage of Instagram to spread out my media. Because my blog/content focused on food related topics I realized it was very image based. So I thought to myself, what better platform than to use Instagram to help promote my blog!

Most of the reviews are based on my WordPress blog, but I do like to give sneak previews on Instagram. I make use of my posts and Instagram stories to hint my follows that a full review will be ‘coming soon’. This helped with engagement and I get to spread out my content through 3 different ways. 1. Instagram post 2. Instagram Story 3. WordPress blog

Flow i intended my audience to go from: Instagram post –> view story –> visit blog for full review

Week 11: Remarkables

Darren  Barefoot from Capulet Communications accompanied by Sarah came into our class and talked about remarkables. For those who are unaware like I was, Capulet explains it well: Remarkables are high impact digital marketing campaigns meant to attract attention. These are the campaigns you remember even if you are not the target audience. These are the campaigns that stand out because they can easily take a simple idea and turn its head to be memorable. What I appreciate most about this presentation was that it gave context to how impactful it can be. Despite it being rooted in capital and business, the messages and content can easily transcend that.

For example, the Canuck Place Children’s Hospice provides pediatric palliative care to families across British Columbia. This can be a stressful and depressing place for everyone because it’s taking care of very sick children and making their end a bit easier. Capulet did a fantastic remarkable where they created a blanket fort with a complete library and toys for the kids to play just for the afternoon. This gave such a positive environment for everyone involved. For a grim place, they turned it to a place where they can be happy in.

It’s a great example in how it reaches multiple channels and then getting their messages across through these. The local news channels started covering it. They were posting in social media. It is posted on different blogs. Different people and networks are talking about and that’s powerful. They don’t have to be vested in the hospice or the people who are involved, but a remarkable can transcend the oversaturation of media content felt by many online users. There’s enough “feel good” on the internet but there’s also too many depressing topics and articles. Remarkables can leave an impact and be spoken above these.

SITE COMMUNITY GUIDELINES – Process Post #12

My penultimate Process Post will be what I formulated for my site’s community guidelines. Ryan Holmes calls attention to the pervasiveness of isolation in the technological age and the ways online community discourses and thus, people, are affected by this in this article. We are isolated enough to not have to see the ways we can harm other Internet users and connected enough to be able to enact harm like rapid fire. Interestingly, Maria Konnikova identifies anonymity as having attributes that seem at odds; though Internet users are more likely to speak violently without thinking of the consequences of their behaviour, anonymity is also acknowledged as a helpful tool with respect to “participation”, “creative thinking” and “risk taking”. Mark Shrayber points to the real distinction that we must make in these times: the difference between ‘trolling’ and a hate crime.

Online interactions are a new form of discourse and because human beings are the ones behind them, they must be moderated. Here are the community guidelines for Memoir is a Mirror.

I moderate all comments and will consult the following guidelines when doing so.

While I welcome critique and challenge of my writing, I will not tolerate hateful, threatening or violent language towards me or any other users.

I will not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia or other forms of hate-speech, or contributions that could be interpreted as such.*

I will remove any posts that contain spam-like content.

In short, be pleasant and caring to the fellow readers of this site.

*I appropriated this guideline from The Guardian.

I’ve added this list to my “Hello” page under the Instagram feed so that users can read the guidelines when they are familiarizing themselves with my site.

Unconscious drawing 2017

It is a work of drawing which is inspired by personal doodling.

I was thinking about the unconsciousness as an element of the dematerialization in art. Doodling is a work that I unconsciously drew while I was taking an academic lecture. The concept of unconsciousness makes my doodling idealess because I do not  express any idea through the movement of a hand. Considering the doodling as an idealess artwork, I decided to re-create the doodling on a piece of a white paper. By re-drawing the doodling, I am creating an artwork that is created from my unconsciousness. The unconsciousness becomes an artistic idea of this artwork. At the same time, I spent a lot of time filling a white piece of paper by doodling. After hours and hours of drawing, I finally reached the point when I finally find myself uncousciously drawing the doodling. It was almost ritualistic gesture that I repeatedly use my hand to leave pen-marks. The primary idea of the artwork is uncousciousness, and I was unconsciously creating an artwork.

 

 

PROCESS POST: Week Twelve — Community Guidelines

The Nordic Graphic Design is a blog that strives to work as a gallery for female creativity. All readers are also a part of of shaping this website into what it is supposed to be. Therefor, tNGD ask readers to act intelligent, insightful and strive, when commenting: to have an entertaining conversation. Argument can always end up being more fire than calm, which of course is okay, but always treat everyone with respect and act with grace. Treat others as you expect to be treated.

Commenting is open for everyone, but the comments will be read through by the one that published the post being commented. This is not to make comments controlled or limited, but to create a safe platform for the designer to be seen at. All comments posted on interviews will be first reviewed by a moderator to ensure they meet community standards. This process should only take a few moments. Your comment will appear on the site after it has been approved.
To keep the these guidelines in check, every trespass will be notified and not posted.