Monthly Archives: November 2020

Mini Assignment #5

This is an infographic that traces my online presence telling the story of my history as briefly as possible, the significance is a backstory to both of my media presences and why they are both important to me. I have one that is for my family so they see me in the light that they would be proud of that also leaves me with a sense of peace and one where I can be who I am including the things that I couldn’t be part of in the eyes of my family.

Peer Review #3

For this week I will reviewing Chii’s Sweet Home linked here: http://chiisweethome.com/

I was very excited to browse through this website after seeing that it was another food website and I do love food. I was intrigued when noticing that it would be Asian cuisine with a Western style added to it, this I think would entice their directed audience and create an eagerness to try something new. Food is something that anyone can relate to but as a college student and an international student, I think that this kind of site would target the college or high school students well. Especially since we are all pressed for time and could use some ideas for cooking!

According to Shelby Carpenter from the Forbes website, it can be hard to maintain and keep creating content for the site. Food I think is something that could really last a while if you really put your mind to it. There are so many recipes and different types of food that can be made and posted. And like Chii explained in her About section, she will include recipes that you can make when you don’t want to put a lot of effort into cooking or don’t have a lot of time, it is just a matter of getting creative.

I love the pink background with the white boxes and different shade of pink text. It pops, demands attention, and the different shades of pink work well together. Another thing that I liked, was the different pictures of foods at the top of the pages when clicking on different categories, this too goes well with the color scheme and layout of the website. It again would capture the audience’s attention and pique their interest to linger.

The categories on the side of the site allow for an easy way to navigate through the site instead of just scrolling up and down, if flows smoothly so the audience won’t get frustrated and give up.

One thing I might recommend is the About section. This picture is also lovely, different, and also matches the color theme. It did take me a little while to figure out that I actually had to click on the picture to take me to the About page so I would recommend putting a little description on the bottom saying “Click Here” or something like that! 🙂

Overall, I love the idea and uniqueness of this website! There is still work to be done and I can’t wait to see what other content they create.

The Perfect Puffer

Welcome to another week of blogging! This week’s blog post will be all about puffer jackets. By now I’m sure you have all seen a friend or a celebrity rock the timeless puffer. What is a puffer jacket? A puffer jacket, also known as a down jacket, is a quilted or padded jacket that is […]

Peer Review 3: simple art.

Click here to visit simple art. First Impression Keeping in mind marketability, my first impression of the blog site simple art. was that it had the potential to market themselves to their intended audience. Maybe not through the usage of ads, but maybe through affiliate links. Marketability/Monetization For example, there could be a navigation button […]

Managing Marketability

After our lecture, in which our guest speaker, Trevor Battye, highlighted that I could monetize my website by selling prints of my photography, I decided that I would follow through with this idea. I had already contemplated selling my art, and getting the external unbiased validation from a stranger motivated me to take action. As such, I created a couple social pages to promote my art and linked them to my blog: http://instagram.com/dimsumdyke and https://www.facebook.com/dimsumdyke. While the pages have no content and only read ‘COMING SOON’, I will spend some time this upcoming week working on creating an audience on these platforms.

Additionally, I’ve added a Creative Commons license to my photos. I selected a license that allows my work to be shared and remixed, so long as I am credited for the original work and so long as the material is not used for commercial purposes. I selected this license as I don’t want others to profit off of the basis of my creativity; however, I do want my art to be distributed for non-capitalist intentions and to be used creatively. Here is the updated post with the license at the bottom: https://dimsumdyke.com/portfolio/girls/.

I’m contemplating setting up an Etsy or something similar to sell prints, tote bags and t-shirts. Otherwise I will sell them via the Instagram and Facebook pages I’ve set up. Stay tuned to find out what I decide and financially support my creative endeavors!

Peer Review #3 – A Blog for Life Livers

I love this blog!

A Blog for Life Livers is written by Hope Stewart, an adventurer and life liver, sharing her stories of childhood joy and new experiences. Hope writes beautifully about enjoying the life around you and being present in every moment. She uses pictures and poems to portray her feelings and emotions from each adventure, with occasional videos showing small moments that she wants to remember.

This is blog that leaves you feeling refreshed, optimistic, and in wonder. Check out a Blog for Life Livers here.

Organization

Hope’s homepage is set with pictures and bold fonts that capture the viewer on first glance. As you scroll through, you’ll see some images that capture the vibe of this website and set the tone for all of her blog posts. There is also a welcome message at the bottom of the page that invites you to consider your own life and how you might create new adventures.

So come in and stay awhile, as each page has been placed here for you: to draw inspiration for your next adventure, to help you conquer fear, to help you seize each day, and to learn to fully immerse yourself in moments both wild and calm.

The top menu is well organized and gives the viewer easy access to the media they are looking for. The media gallery highlights Hope’s videos and photos and immerse the viewer into an adventure of their own. Browsing through Hope’s media makes me feel as though I get to experience a little bit of her adventure as well!

Marketability

This blog presents many beautiful original images that capture the vision of Hope’s website. Creating prints or postcards of these images could be a great way to allow your audience to participate in the stories while supporting your writing! Post cards would be an especially unique product you could sell that represent the slow-ness of handwriting a letter and enjoying every moment.

Check out Hope’s media gallery here.

Another way to market your website could be to partner with tourism companies in encouraging more travelers to come visit their area. Your video of Hornby island captures moments that feel whimsical and magical and could definitely inspire more people to visit those places! One suggestion would be contacting small island communities like Bowen Island, Gibsons, or Lund and offering to make them a video showcasing the best part of their city! This could be a great way to travel, gain more content for your website and generate revenue.

This website is beautifully simple and refreshingly organized, so I would hesitate to incorporate ads that may hinder the viewer experience given that this blog is very experience driven. One possibility for ad revenue could be to partner with related companies to promote products that relate to your blog postings.

An example of this could be with the Mushroom Hunting Blog post. You could reach out to companies that offer classes or books on how to identify mushrooms and then collect revenue based on how may clicks from your blog lead to theirs.

A similar example could be with your Mindfulness and Yoga post. This post links to Yoga Youtubers and workout routines, which could potentially be business partners and generate revenue for your website!

Overall, this is a beautiful website that creates freshness and relief in a busy and confused world. Check out a Blog for Life Livers to enjoy nature, mindfulness, and stealing moments as presented by Hope Stewart.

Stealing moments helps you realize that you are the master of your own time and that you have more control over your own happiness than it may feel. It helps you look for little silver linings in the smallest of things and encourages gratitude and mindfulness.”

NHL eyeing all-Canadian division with January 1st as a potential start date

Oilers’ goaltender Mike Smith fights Flames’ Cam Talbot on February 01, 2020, in Calgary, Alberta. Photo credit: Gerry Thomas/NHLI via Getty Images

Well into our second month without NHL games now, hockey fans are clamoring for some NHL action, and with any luck, they’ll be seeing it by New Years’ Day.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has spoken multiple times now about the possibility of a January 1st start date for the upcoming season, but as we inch closer to that date without any plan formally in place, you have to wonder how realistic that target really is. Of course, the biggest obstacle for the league right now is the current surge in cases of COVID-19 across both the United States and Canada.

The Canada-US border is still closed until November 21st, after the closure was once again extended last month. However, with cases on the rise, and the deadline being only one week away, it’s incredibly likely that this closure will be extended again very soon. Even if we see a dramatic improvement in the number of cases in both countries, it’s doubtful that we’ll see the border open before January or perhaps even February.

So, where does that leave the binational National Hockey League? With 24 US-based teams and only seven in Canada, the vast majority of matchups for Canadian teams during any given season are against American opponents. However, that could be changing this upcoming season, as rumours continue to float around about an all-Canadian division for the 2021 NHL season.

Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton are all currently in the NHL’s Pacific division and typically play each other about four or five times per season. The same can be said for Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal, who account for a good portion of the Atlantic division. On the outside looking in are the Winnipeg Jets, who are presently joined by six US-based teams in the Central division, and consequently play their fellow Canadian opponents less often during a regular 82-game season.

If the Canadian division ends up going ahead, we’ll be treated to more frequent matchups between Pacific and Atlantic teams, as well as between the Jets and the other six Canadian clubs. However, with January 1st as the target date, it’s unlikely the NHL will manage to squeeze in an entire 82-game schedule, which typically runs from October to April.

The NHL does have experience planning a shortened season, though, having played a 48-game campaign in 2013 due to a CBA-related lockdown. That season ran from January 19th to April 28th, so with a two-week head start, the NHL should be able to pencil in another half a dozen games or so, and still finish relatively on time. With travel also being less of a concern, the NHL has suggested that teams play short series against one another, similar to how the MLB operates. This would allow teams to play two or three games in one city over a shorter period of time, without wasting as much time on the road.

At this point, it’s still all up in the air, however. The NHL has also tabled the idea of short-term hubs, where teams would play in one location for 10 to 12 days before moving on to the next one. Essentially, this would be a miniature version of what we saw in Edmonton and Toronto this past summer for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

No matter how it all shakes out, what seems to be almost a given at this point is that we will see an all-Canadian division. It’s entirely possible that the teams branch out and play US-based teams later on in the season if restrictions lift, but we’ll be seeing a lot of all-Canadian action this season regardless.

Now, just for fun, let’s see how an all-Canadian division with all-Canadian matchups would’ve turned out last season. Obviously, the sample size will be incredibly small, and this won’t take into account any roster moves made by the clubs during the offseason, but let’s take a look anyway.

Despite the fact that the Vancouver Canucks went the farthest of any Canadian team last year in the playoffs, making it to game seven of the Western Conference semifinals, they had a dreadful regular season record against the other six Canadian clubs. Winnipeg played a handful fewer games than every other team against their Canadian counterparts but using points-percentage as the measuring stick for success, they sit atop.

Of course, there’s no telling what will really happen this coming season and one person’s guess as is good as next’s. The NHL is running out of time to set everything in motion if they do want to accomplish that January 1st start date.

For now we’ll sit back and wait, and imagine the possibilities.

Baking Powder + Paint + Glass = Ceramic Art?

When I first saw a TikTok video from @genevavanderzeil about her creating beautiful ceramic pieces with only 3 main supplies, I was truly shocked. It looked so authentic and really looked like real ceramic. I had to try it for myself and I am so glad I did.

Supplies Needed

  • Glass container
  • Paint
  • Baking Powder
  • Paintbrush

Step 1

Begin by mixing your paint and baking powder. I personally eyeballed it depending on the size of the glass container that you were painting.

In terms of containers, try whatever you like! Be unique and find some funky shapes to paint. If you are looking for some really cool figures, look through thrift stores like Value Village.

Step 2

Use straight strokes up and down the container while trying not to layer on top of each other just yet. Once you fully cover the container, let it fully dry before attempting another coat. This way the paint will look smooth and even all over.

Add as many coats as you need in order for it to be opaque!

Step 3

You are done! It’s that simple. Display these pieces wherever you like, I personally have them on my dresser because they fit the theme of my room.

Hope you guys enjoyed and I hope you get a chance to try this out! Until next time 🙂

<3 Carissa

The post Baking Powder + Paint + Glass = Ceramic Art? appeared first on the Power of Painting.

Incorporating feedback from the final peer review

Process Post #11

It’s hard to believe, but we’re soon entering week ten of classes for the Fall 2020 semester, and as much as it feels like we fast-forwarded right here, I also can’t help but reflect on all the progress made on my website until now.

This week marks the third and final peer review for this class, in which my peer offered some really great advice. Coming off the lecture on monetization with a guest appearance from Trevor Battye, my peer began with a few suggestions about how I could monetize in the future if it’s something I wanted to do. Although they reaffirmed my sour feelings about ad-cluttered websites, they did suggest that through some filtering, I could include sports-related advertising content or feature sports-oriented companies down the line. This is definitely something I would consider if I gained a big enough following, and I appreciate my peer’s confidence in something like this being able to actually work.

The next suggestion in regards to monetization was to consider asking readers for donations to keep the site running, which admittedly feels like a nerve-racking thing to do. However, it is becoming more common to see, and personally, I would never abandon a website for asking for money. At the worst, people would likely decline and continue reading.

In journalism, and sports journalism in particular, it has become somewhat normal to ask readers to pay for a subscription for unlimited and exclusive content, much like The Athletic has done since its inception a few years ago. Its staff has grown enormously in the past few years, at least until the pandemic hit, signaling that people were willing to pay for quality sports journalism.

In terms of monetization, my peer definitely provided some good food for thought for the future!

The next pieces of advice from my peer were centered around the basic design and functionality of my site. For starters, they suggested I reorder my menu order to have ‘Contact’ come last, after ‘PUB 101 Coursework,’ which makes a lot of sense now that I think of it! Thankfully this was an easy fix, with the updated menu pictured below.

The next suggestion my peer made was in reference to my ‘Contact’ page itself, where they recommended I install a contact form where people can contact me rather than having my website just floating out there for everyone to see. The link they provided was super useful and easy to follow that I had the plugin installed and published within minutes.

Finally, the last piece of advice they gave was to make my website secure using the Really Simple SSL plugin. Props to my peer for being eagle-eyed and to notice that my website wasn’t secure before. Once again, thanks to their linking, it was super quick and easy for me to activate and install this plugin.

Over the course of ten weeks, it becomes easy to look at your own website and be satisfied with its layout and features, so it helps to have a fresh set of eyes at this stage in the semester. Big thank you to my peer who provided some very valuable feedback this week!

Peer Review of Blog “My films Blog”

My films Blog‘s homepage opens with a large image of a man in a movie theater. This image takes up nearly all the space above the fold, except for the margin at the bottom in which the main menu is situated. This design choice could pose problems depending on the image used, but it works quite nicely with the image selected by the blogger, giving a clear visual of what the blog is about. Also, there is a button on the menu to scroll right past the image, taking the viewer directly to the blog’s content. It is effective having the heading menu remain at the top of the page no matter how far you scroll down the blog, as to always give the viewer an option to further navigate the blog. Additionally, the blog features a search function which is a useful tool, especially if a viewer wants to search for a specific film. Also making the blog user-friend, My Films Blog features effective contrast in text/background, making it easy on the eyes for the audience.

Presumably, the intended audience for this blog is fellow film critics and fanatics – perhaps even those involved in the film industry. With some fine-tuning of the grammar, punctuation and capitalization used on the blog, it would be effectively professional-looking, thus inviting serious viewers from the film industry to engage with the blog. A consistent flow of syntax could make the blog more appealing to potential professionals viewing the blog, which could in turn lead to partnerships for reviewing certain films.

For example, the word ‘this’ should be capitalized and the last sentence may want to read ‘It’s a Sora and Riku mix’. Additionally, the word ‘near(est)’ is repeated twice in the address section. In the About this Site section, it may want to read ‘in which’ or ‘where’. The author of this blog could benefit from spell- and grammar-checking their posts, sidebar, and pages.

Content-wise, the blog covers a range of films which is appealing to a variety of readers. This is important in the marketability of their blog as to draw in a larger audience. The use of bold text at the end of each film review is effective in giving the reader a quick glimpse into what the film is about and how well-rated it is.

Lastly, having a contact page where the author invites the reader to submit film review requests is very effective in drawing in an audience. One issue with this page, again, is the grammar and punctuation.

‘if’ should be capitalized. ‘i’ should be capitalized’. And finally, ‘ill’ should read ‘I’ll’.

Peer Review #3 Reflection & Updates

Today, I’ll be making some changes to my site based on the most recent peer review conducted for this site, which can be found here. I’m really pleased that my peer liked the look of my homepage, especially because that’s where I have put in a lot of work over the last few weeks. It also made me happy that my peer commented on the user-friendly features of my site and the good quality of my writing.

I appreciate that my peer brought up the idea of affiliate ads- that’s an area of monetization that I could see myself working with if I do ever decide to monetize this site. I also liked the idea of creating social media handles for Masked Retail so that my audience can grow without me compromising my personal privacy. I am currently drowning in schoolwork, however, so this may be a change that I implement once this semester is over.

Next, my peer suggested that I install a plugin that allows for my posts to be shared with a user’s social network. This hadn’t occurred to me, so I installed the Social Snap plugin after reading through this article that my peer had linked with suggestions for plugins. I am happy with this plugin: It was simple to use, and I didn’t need to upgrade the plugin to accomplish my goal of allowing people to share my posts. Below is an example of what you’ll see at the bottom of each of my blog posts:

Another suggestion that my peer offered was that I write a message to go with my contact form to give suggestions as to why they may want to contact me. I really liked the idea of personalizing this section of my site, so I added a brief message above the contact form.

Finally, my peer noticed that my grid layout did not transfer well on a mobile device. I hadn’t realized this. I did several hours of research to try to find something that would fix this, but so far, I haven’t had any luck. I think that the only solution available to me right now may be to change my theme. However, that is something I really don’t want to do. I have gotten used to this theme and have customized it so much with the use of plugins. I do want to fix this problem though, so I am open to suggestions from anyone reading!

Special thanks to my peer for an awesome review! I am happy with what I got out of it and hope you like the changes to my site.

(Featured Image by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash)

Peer Review #3 – Great White Sport

This week’s peer review is for Great White Sport, a sports blog focused on events and athletes specifically in Canada.

There are a lot of great things about this site that I noticed right away. Specifically, the homepage (which is the featured image for this post) is great because it combines an overview of what the site is about while also including a “Recent Posts” section. I am also a fan of the header and the carousal of images.

Now, I will get into the topic of monetization. In your Process Post #10, you mentioned that you were content with not monetizing your site right now, which I can definitely relate to. However, your site does have potential to monetize, so I will discuss ways you could do that. You mentioned that you do not want so many ads that your content would be covered, and I have to agree- if I was a user, I would probably leave an ad-cluttered site pretty quickly. I think that you could still make a decent amount of money if you filter advertisement to be related to your content. There are plenty of sports-oriented companies that I am sure would love to be featured on your site one day!

Another idea that may work in your favour is crowdfunding/sponsorship from institutions. According to Vauhini Vara’s 2015 article “Survival Strategies for Local Journalism”, advertising alone may not be enough if you want a steady stream of revenue from your site. If you were to ask your readers for a donation to keep your site going, I bet many of them would do it. It is like what guest lecturer Trevor Battye said- people want to help you! The more personal you get in asking, the more likely your readers will contribute to the site.

Next, I have a couple of suggestions that could help your site, regardless of whether you monetize it or not. First, I think you should rearrange your menu order.

All the right elements are there, only “Contact” should be moved to the last position, right after “Pub 101 Coursework”. This seems to be an unspoken rule of the way a menu should be set up, according to our T.A., because normally someone would go to contact you after reading through the written work.

Another suggestion I have is that you install a contact form. You currently have your university email on display, which may attract spam by being so openly available on your site (I won’t include a picture here so that you can keep that information private). Installing a contact form will add an extra level of professionalism to your site (very important if you ever want to monetize); it should be painless if you follow the steps here.

Finally, I noticed that your site is currently unsecure.

I used the Really Simple SSL plugin to solve fix this problem, and it only took a few minutes to do! SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, and it shows that a site is secure and that the link between the server and the client is encrypted. This is another important step to take to protect the privacy of you and your readers, especially if you do decide to monetize your site.

Overall, I really enjoyed this site. The quality of your work is excellent, and I can tell that you are passionate about sports and running this blog. If you ever change your mind about monetization, I am sure that you can do it in a way that does not interfere with your content.

What Inspires Me to Write Songs

One of the first songs I’ve ever written was about a boy back in Kindergarten when he broke my crayon after borrowing it. Since then not much has changed. I still write about boys, however, instead of breaking my crayons a few have broken my heart. Reflecting back now, I find myself laughing at the countless times I’ve written songs after what feels like my heart getting ripped out of my chest, but hey! You go through what you need to go through in life. Musicians just cope by singing about it!

I grew up watching a lot of rom-coms that have conditioned me into being a hopeless romantic. In the grand scheme of things, it makes a lot of sense as to why I find myself writing about love so often. I see it in a lot of things throughout my life. Whether it be about my romantic relationship, friendships, parents, I just feel really lucky to be surrounded by it.

Aside from that, the biggest inspirations for me when it comes to songwriting is God. I feel like this might be a sensitive/personal topic for some, but I would like to try and explain why this is special to me. From a young age, my faith and relationship with Christ has always been a big part of my life. Within the last three to four years, I have found myself in situations that have me in a posture of surrender and trusting Him with what He has planned for me. I sing because I know music was a gift given to me to give to others.

PEER REVIEW: Musings of a Middle Child

Hello, everyone! It’s time for another Peer Review. This one is specifically about audience and marketability, which is fun.

Let’s get into it. Today, we’re looking at Musings of a Middle Child, run by my classmate, Kayla!

First of all, I know this isn’t what we’re touching on, but I just adore this blog’s theme. It has an ANIMATED header! That’s so cool! It’s honestly kinda mesmerizing!

Musings of a Middle Child

There’s also a little subscription tab, and a Goodreads widget, and overall it looks very professional. The whole thing even kind of fits this nice, forest colour theme? Overall, it’s a treat.

(Dammit, I really should’ve done a book blog this semester.)

But this is about audience and marketability, so let’s look at that.

First of all, it’s really great as a general book blog. Like, really great. It’s all about personal opinions, and seems to have a tendency towards listicles, which are very easy to read: favourites of 2020, exciting future releases, least favourites (FINALLY someone else who hates Sarah J. Maas and specifically the first three Grishaverse books AND The Red Queen! All objectively bad!!!)…

Again, listicles are great, in my experience. Easy to read, easy to write, and perfect for bite-sized entertainment.

Another thing that I think really helps this site’s audience engagement is that there’s not only a contact page, but a reason to USE it: Kayla here is open to review requests!

Actually, there’re a lot of little widgets that’re great for that kind of engagement. Again, the Goodreads and subscription tabs? Great! I’m honestly taking notes in my head about how much Kayla’s done right. Like, this isn’t just a review site, but it’s a person running a review site who’s open to basically any kind of interaction.

I guess if I had to say anything of the constructive nature, it’d be that it would be neat if there were more actual reviews on the site. I imagine that’s what Kayla’s GoodReads is for, but right now all that comes up on the site’s Reviews tab is this piece about Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater, of Raven Cycle fame.

It’s really well-done, and it’d be cool if this book review blog had more full, detailed book reviews! Don’t get me wrong, listicles are great and I don’t think anyone would mind having that be a majority of the blog, but I feel like there should be at least a few more proper reviews. Just for the sake of consistency, y’know?

Overall, though, I had a great time checking out this blog! I’m probably going to add Kayla on GoodReads now! Because, again, I love how that’s a little widget, and it looks like we have fairly similar taste!

Until next time.

Peer review #3: Masked Retail (maskedretail.com)

This week’s peer review will focus on a website by one of my classmates called Masked Retail, which covers many topics related to working and shopping at retail stores during the COVID-19 pandemic. The topic couldn’t be more relevant to our lives right now with case numbers increasing and the holiday shopping season upon us, so I actually really enjoyed exploring this website.

The website has a very clean design that’s aesthetically pleasing. The header isn’t overwhelming and adds a nice splash of colour to a simple, yet inviting homepage. I like that homepage draws readers in with a couple of simple questions before inviting them to browse the site to find the answers to those questions and more.

Masked Retail is also very easy to navigate thanks to its implementation of a standard menu bar. Moreover, giving users the ability to click just about anywhere (header, pictures, headings) and be taken to a page makes it extremely user-friendly. I could continue on about the positive features of this website, including the friendly about page and well-written blog posts, but at this point in the semester I think it will be more helpful to focus on a few specific elements that could benefit from a bit of tweaking.

With this week’s topic revolving around marketing, I’ll now consider the ways in which this website is marketable. As I mentioned previously, the topic is something that is relevant to all of us as consumers right now, so in that sense, it’s highly marketable. After reading the admin’s latest process post, I can see that she doesn’t feel like she’s in a position to monetize right now, which is completely fair. However, for the purpose of this week’s review, I’ll go over a few things that could improve the website from both a design standpoint and for potential future monetization.

As the admin notes, a site cluttered with advertisements isn’t their style, and I agree that it might take away from the tidy nature of the website. However, Masked Retail definitely has the potential to feature sponsored content or affiliate ads from specific retailers or others involved in the industry who might want to get a message out to a broader public concerned with safe shopping practices.

I understand that the admin doesn’t want to be identifiable on this website for privacy reasons, but perhaps as the website continues to grow, it might be useful to create a Facebook or some sort of social media page under the same name for people to connect to. That way, readers can stay up-to-date on the latest posts without having to check back on their own accord. This would likely increase traffic and improve the overall marketability of the website.

Another suggestion regarding social media would be to add shareable buttons at the bottom or top of posts that allow readers to share them with their social networks. The following website includes a few options for plugins that accomplish this. I just installed Social Snap on my website personally, and while you need a premium membership to unlock more niche platforms, the free version includes Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and email, which are useful.

Looking at the website’s contact page (below), it might also be useful to include a little message above the fillable fields that suggests why people might want to leave a comment or contact them. For example, they could ask people to contact them with any story suggestions, marketing/partnership opportunities, or just to say hello.

Lastly, I want to briefly address the post grid that the admin has included on their homepage and other post pages.

The use of pictures and a preview of the text within the post is great and gives the site a professional feel. However, when I loaded the site on my mobile device (iPhone XR), the post grid design didn’t transfer all that well. I’m no WordPress guru and don’t know exactly how one would go about making the plugin and site compatible with mobile devices, but it might be something worth looking into. Below are two screenshots side by side of how the homepage looks on Safari on my phone.

If the admin ends up tweaking with the post grid plugin to make it more compatible with other devices, they can use a website like responsivedesignchecker.com, which allows them to plug their URL in and preview the website at different screen resolutions.

Otherwise, this has been one of my favourite websites to explore in the class and I think it has a lot of potential going forward beyond this semester.

Infographic

When I saw that I had to make an infographic, I freaked out a little bit. Design is not my strong suit, and I had never done this sort of thing before. Luckily, I had heard multiple recommendations to use Canva to create this infographic. I found that it was pretty easy to customize the themes they provided and I am proud of what I created.

I tried to create an infographic that sums up the online presence of Masked Retail. I included a brief description of what the blog is for and who I am, and then guessed on some percentages that I could include to divide up the type of content/messages I provide. I also used a colour scheme that fits with the rest of my site.

Without further ado…

Voila!

(Featured Image by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash)

Week 9 – The Business of Publishing

Entrepreneurship & Monetization. Hm.

I have a background in businesses and entrepreneurship, so our talk from Trevor was a lot of things I have already heard through marketing classes, but it was interesting to hear in terms of publishing our unique websites.

It seems funny to put a price tag on art and creative work, but for artists and creatives, this is what they deal with everyday.

I have some friends that are musicians, and I’ve heard many times from them about how it can be frustrating to self-promote and sell tickets to shows when really all you care about is the art of creating. I think for this to be sustainable and not a ‘sell-out’ situation, monetization has to be carefully thought out with lots of emphasis put into maintaining your core values.

This is the struggle shown by the “The Toast is Toast” reading (Carpenter, 2016). This blog had incredible content and a strong following; however they weren’t able to get enough financial support, and the administrative tasks of website upkeep became two much for the blogging duo. This is the danger of wanting art to remain separate from business.

In considering my own website, I have linked to a lot of related bloggers and products that my readers may be interested in. If I was to monetize, I would like to carefully curate the businesses being addressed on my site, and preferably I would like to have relationships with the companies I am linking to. This way I could monitor what is being promoted through my voice.

For this semester, I will refrain from installing ads on my website and instead reach out to some bloggers that may be interested in collaborating with me!