Tag Archives: @learnpublishing

Reflection on The Site

This is the last process posts for this class and I think it is a good idea to a quick reflection and the things I have learned along the way.

This site has been on so many ups and downs as a reflection of my semester. With no time, I struggled to find ways in displaying my contents online. I found it hilarious that the site is about me being a design student, and it took me almost until the end of the semester to work on the visual design of the site. My defense is how busy I had been. Currently, I would say that the blog is fairly close to the vision I had at the beginning. With the images and content, they portray who I am as an individual online fairly well. I wish I could have more time to work on the public posts, showing my creativity in podcast and videos. I can work on it after this class.

From this class, I am more thoughtful about the content I posted online and the relationship I have with my audience. Also, I make me think about the potential my posts could make to my audience. I hope I could use this knowledge more on my YouTube channel, since I’m going to start working on it again next year.

My Final Post

[Original Post Date: 12/6/22]

Well, this will be my final post of the semester. So I wanted to take this time and reflect on how much I’ve grown as a person over the last couple of months.

I originally set out when making this blog site to become more confident when sharing my art pieces out to the public, outside of my immediate circle of friends or family. Looking back now, I never really understood why I was so scared to share my art pieces in the first place. Maybe the process was something unfamiliar to me. Maybe I was afraid that people would judge too harshly. Or maybe it was simply that I didn’t want to. Whatever the case may be, making this blog site and posting my art pieces was definitely something out of my comfort zone and has helped me grown as a person and as an artist. And, miracoulsly, made me realize that sharing my art wasn’t as scary as I intially thought it would be.

So I wanted to give a huge shout out to Suzanne Norman and Lauren Jeanneau, the teaching team behind this course. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone and explore something entirely new to me. I’ve always been meaning to share my art pieces out into the world but I’ve been hesitant for unknown reasons. Thinking back at the start of the semester, it’s kinda silly to me that I was so hesitant and unwilling to share my art. But it’s also quite incredible how much I’ve grown in confidence within the span of a couple of months. The people that conducted a peer review on my blog site commented on how all of the art pieces were all really well done. Those small comments gave me a huge confidence boost in my abilities as an artist.

To everyone reading this post, thank you. Even if you stopped by just to view one post, that small act means a lot to me. If I ever make it as a successful illustrator (let’s be honest, probably not. But maybe? Unless?), I will remember this as being a huge stepping stone for me. Perhaps I will continue to post here throughout the coming months. Or perhaps I will just look at this site to remind myself how much I’ve grown during these couple of months, or how much I’ve grown by the time I’m revisitng this site.

And so, a new chapter begins for everyone. And I wish you all good luck on your next ventures, whatever they may be.

Thank you to everyone. Exist in peace.

Goodbye. Now, leave.

Establishing Community Guidelines

[Original Post Date: 11/29/22]

I believe community guidelines are important to establish what type of content is or is not allowed on a site. An example of community guidelines that I have taken inspiration from is YouTube’s set. (link: https://www.youtube.com/intl/ALL_ca/howyoutubeworks/policies/community-guidelines/).

I took inspiration from this site as it had a similar type of content and the main source of interaction between the creator and the viewer was through the commenting system. I took a look through the different sets of community guidelines that YouTube has currently in place. There are three umbrella terms that I would consider adding to my own set of community guidelines; posts that include violent or dangerous content, sensitive topics, and spam.

To me, spam is more likely to occur than comments that contain sensitive topics or violent content as my blog site has not amassed a big enough audience that would lead to someone posting comments. Therefore targeting spam with my own set of community guidelines would make the most sense. I would tackle this by installing plugins that stop bots from commenting on spam in my posts. I would consider using the ‘Block Spam WordPress’ plugin

In terms of tackling comments that include sensitive or violent topics, I would consider the following. If there were to be one or two comments that have been made that include violent and/or sensitive topics, I would manually remove these comments. In the case of there being multiple comments being made throughout multiple posts, I would just disable my comment system.

Transmedia Integration

[Original Post Date: 11/22/22]

Transmedia: where elements of fiction are told through different forms of media (i.e., T.V. shows, movies, books, microsites).

Transmedia can be seen in multiple types of established IPs. Take “The Dark Knight” for example. The Dark Knight utilized transmedia during its marketing schemes leading up to the release of the film. Microsites, which are smaller websites dedicated to advertising a specific product, were created to clue in on key story elements of the film. One of the microsites created was for an electoral campaign for one of the characters within the film named “Harvey Dent” who was running for the position of DA. The microsite showcased a poster with the text “HARVEY DENT FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY – I BELIEVE IN HARVEY DENT”. This campaign poster was showcased throughout the first act of the film.

HARVEY DENT FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY. I BELIEVE IN HARVEY DENT
I believe in Harvey Dent Campaign Poster

As the release date of the film was drawing closer, the microsite updated the poster to include a more vandalized version. The left half of Harvey Dent’s face was scribbled with a red marker. A black marker was used to form a crude ‘x’ over Harvey Dent’s left eye, symbolizing that he was half-dead.

This poster foreshadowed what would happen to Harvey Dent and who would cause the harm to turn him into the infamous villain. Two-Face.

"I BELIEVE IN HARVEY DENT" The only sensible way to live in this worl is without rules.
FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Paid for by friends of Harvey Dent
Vandalized Version of I believe in Harvey Dent Campaign Poster

How I plan to incorporate transmedia into my blog site is simple. One of the main reasons I created this blog site (outside of the fact that it was required of me to make one for a PUB course) was that it was to be used in a way where I would be comfortable sharing my art pieces with people I don’t really know. Now, I have become a lot more comfortable showcasing my art to the public. Therefore, in the near future, I would create a dedicated account on social media platforms such as Instagram, ArtStation, and Twitter to place all of my art pieces. On these social media pages, I would post pieces that are either ‘work-in-progress’ or fully finished. Within these posts, I would place a link to my blog which would then detail more so of my process for each piece for those that are interested. On my about page on my blog site, I would place links to each of these accounts. I plan to also host exclusive content that would only be available on this blog site in order to incentivize visitors to come to visit.

The Deep Web vs. The Dark Web

[Original Post Date: 11/22/22]

The Deep Web vs the Dark Web. I never really knew that there was a difference between the two. All I knew about them was that they were a part of the internet that cannot be surfaced by regular search engines like Google or Bing. You would have to download a specialized browser that allows you to browse the dark or deep web anonymously.

In the article titled “Clearing Up Confusion – Deep Web vs. Dark Web“, the stated difference between the two different types of the web is that the dark web is a smaller portion of the deep web. The dark web is intentionally hidden due to it containing illicit content that ranges from strange to outright disturbing.

I think what really piqued my interest in the concept of the dark and deep web was from a video game titled “Welcome To The Game” parts one and two. I first heard of this game when one of my favorite YouTubers, Markiplier, did a playthrough of the game. The game revolves around you taking control of your character who is a detective tasked with discovering the location of a woman who has been kidnapped. The goal of the game is to collect these keys that are hidden throughout different websites within the dark web. Welcome to the Game has been described as a very challenging game due to how it mimics realistic scenarios. Your character must ensure that they hide their identity when using the dark web as others can track your location and kill you; game over.

Now, that’s not to say that I would go around snooping the dark web. While I understand that utilizing a specialized browser would help mask my identity and information thus making it relatively safe, if I am not careful, malicious people can track my location or find information about me easily which may lead to dangerous consequences.

Colouring Clothes

For this week, I followed a patreon tutorial on how to colour in clothes. I noticed during my Arcane art style study, one of my biggest weaknesses was colouring in clothes and making sure that the texture was appropriate for the attire.

Therefore, I decided to go back to an old patreon tutorial that detailed how to colour clothes and apply the right textures ste-by-step. I found that the process of picking colours for the shadows and illuminated parts are slightly different than the colouring process for other objects. Usually, when picking colours for the shaded areas, I would adjust to a completely different hue in order to ensure that the right shade is chosen depending on the environment that dictates the colours. However, for clothes, I would only ever need adjust the shade within the hue to find the right colours. I don’t know exactly why but the artist who stated that during the patreon tutorial stated that this was true and I think the results back up that claim so I am not going to question that. I’m too tired to be asking why it works, I just see that it works and that the process for choosing the colours is simple.

At the end of the colouring tutorial, I felt more confident in my abilities to colour in clothes. So that’s a win.

Colouring Clothes study/tutorial
Clothing colouring tutorial

Arcane Artstyle Study

For this week, I decided to do an art style study on one of my favourite T.V. shows of all time, Arcane. Ever since this show came out in November of 2021, I have completely been enamoured by the art style as it was something so unique. The only animated films of recent memory that had an animation style so unique that could be comparable to Arcane were ‘The Lego Movie” from 2014 and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” from 2018. While both of these movies excelled in their animation in their own ways, I would place Arcane above all of them. Arcane somehow captured all the subtle nuances when it comes to the emotional expressions from the characters. From the eyes twitching to the eyebrows furrowing, these subtle nuances helped make the characters feel more real and believable, as if they were actually alive.

Anyways, that’s enough gushing about the show. I could go on but I wouldn’t want to subject you to that kind of boredom.

I decided to do a painting of a shot of one of favourite characters from the show, Jinx. This piece took me over 8 hours to complete which was a little more than average. What took me the longest was figuring out the lighting and textures on the skin and clothes. It took me a while to find the right colours to match the ambience of the scene.

I think doing one of these studies has allowed for me to appreciate the art style more. While doing this art style study, I picked a lot of little details that I have missed in my initial binge of the series such as the textures on the clothes, the texture of the hair, and the lighting. Now looking back at scenes and noticing these details, I can appreciate the amount of care and details that went into each frame.

Jinx - Arcane Art Style Study
Arcane art style study

Mini-Assignment #5: An Infographic About Me

[Original Post Date: 11/15/22]

For this mini-assignment, we were tasked to design an infographic that summarizes one’s online self. Therefore, I decided to visualize my levels of stress throughout the entire Fall semester of 2022 in the form of a bar graph.

As you can see, the amount of stress sky-rocketed above 100% from mid-November to early December due to the number of assignments, projects, and deadlines. And I think it’s still going up. šŸ™

Line graph that showcases the level of stress (in percentage) over the months of August to December

Why Deep Fakes Are Both Amazing and Terrifying

[Original Post Date: 11/1/22]

In one of the readings titled ‘Hereā€™s How Worried You Should Be About Those Tom Cruise Deepfakes’, Vice News author David Gilbert writes about a viral video on Twitter of a guy imitating Tom Cruise. However this video doesn’t just showcase some guy doing some half-assed impression of Tom Cruise by exuding his mannerisms and voice. The guy doing the impression is using AI technology to place Tom Cruise’s face on his. This type of process is called a ‘deep fake’. What the AI is essentially doing is mapping out Tom Cruise’s face using either the images that are given to it by the user or scanning the internet (cause there’s a lot of pictures of Tom Cruise’s face on the internet) while simultaneously scanning the face that its going to place Tom Cruise face on. The images that are being scanned look for details involved whenever one person is expressing a certain emotion (think of wrinkles around the eyes when one is genuinely smiling) and banking that information. Therefore, when the original face is expressing an emotion, the AI knows what details to place and for the most part, it does a pretty good job.

I think this type of technology is interesting but certainly terrifying. In this day in age where misinformation and disinformation spreads quickly across social media platforms, this type of technology can cause chaos and panic. Anyone with the knowledge and capacity to use deepfakes can essentially imitate anyone, especially people with power such as politicians. Furthermore, if that person has the same body type and hairstyle as the person they are imitating, deep fakes would be even harder to spot. With deep fakes now, people would know what is a deep fake if they know what they are looking for but with average viewers, they may not be able to tell. With AI getting better with each day that passes, it is going to be difficulty for both average and knowledgeable viewers to determine what is real or fake.

Review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

It has taken me a while to write a review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) because I find myself getting stuck on what I want to say. I watched the film opening day on November 11, and instantly thought it was such a deep and culturally impactful film. Most times I can formulate my thoughts on a movie and convey them with ease. However, with Wakanda Forever, there is an immense number of layers and weight that surround the film as a whole.

Being a sequel to the critically acclaimed Black Panther (2016), the movie needs to effectively build on the last film and evolve the world of Wakanda and its lively characters, while also managing to live up to the massive expectation put in place by the last installment.

Furthermore, Wakanda Forever must also fit within the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, that has started to become more and more critiqued post Avengers: Endgame (2019). Most fans seem to be unsatisfied with many of the newer MCU films and television series. While I agree with many of the critiques regarding the MCU formula growing stagnant and stale, I find many of these people who are critiquing Phase 4 of the MCU to perpetuate hateful ideologies. For instance, it seems many of these ā€œfansā€ that hate She-Hulk (2022) and Ms. Marvel (2022) are actually just toxic men who are irrationally angry and criticize the show for baseless reasons. This increase in toxicity within the MCU fandom discourse has bleed into Wakanda Forever. Much of this toxic hate stems from problematic views surrounding underrepresented minority groups such as the LGBTQIA2S+ community, women, and people of colour. Therefore, a film like Wakanda Forever, that prominently features each of these communities will be targeted with unwarranted hate.

Additionally, amid the challenges COVID-19 presented to the film industry, Wakanda Forever also had to navigate through controversy surrounding lead actress Letitia Wright’s alleged anti-vax position.

And finally, the heartbreaking passing of Chadwick Boseman who played King T’Challa, the Black Panther deeply impacted the production of this film. Originally, the movie was written around Boseman and his depiction of the Black Panther. But, after Bosemanā€™s tragic death, Ryan Coogler, the writer and director of Wakanda Forever had to completely rework the film to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman, and address the absence of Tā€™Challa from the story.

Personally, all these factors wrapped Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) in layers of complications that had me worried. However, I am greatly happy to say that this film not only lives up to the first film, but in my opinion surpasses it.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) is able to achieve this by continuing to explore many of the themes that underlie Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Most, if not all of Phase 4 has been touching on the grief that many characters possess because of the personal losses they experience (ie: Wanda Maximoff in WandaVision, Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home), the pressure a superhero legacy inflicts on the individual (ie: Sam Wilson in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), and shared trauma within a community (ie: Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk). Wakanda Forever, thematically explores each of these elements. This is on display in the profound conversations the main antagonist Namor, played by Tenoch Huerta MejĆ­a has with other characters. Namor can serve as a foil to our heroes while also challenging their beliefs around grief, legacy, and shared trauma, which solidifies him as one of the best antagonists in an MCU film. This exploration of themes the MCU explored in Phase 4 makes Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) a beautiful conclusion to this chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This film also features some of the most breathtaking visuals and settings in the MCU. Since audiences were introduced to Wakanda in the first movie, it has gone on to become an important cultural moment in film history. Practically everyone knows the ā€œWakanda Foreverā€ salute. And many people can now recognize the iconography of Wakanda. With all this in mind, it was absolutely amazing to witness the sequel able to effectively deepen audiencesā€™ connection to Wakanda by exploring more of their culture. Moreover, this film introduces a whole separate culture with the underwater kingdom of Talokan, and their radical leader Namor. Their society and culture are given an immense amount of development which strengthens these two warring nations conflict.

This film was essentially a tribute to Chadwick Boseman, and the palpable sense of loss the black community, MCU fans, and his friends and family experienced. Therefore, the cast had to provide some of the most powerful performances I have ever seen. The character interaction between Letitia Wright as Princess Shuri, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, Winston Duke as M’Baku, Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, Tenoch Huerta MejĆ­a as Namor, and Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda were all massive highlights.

Overall, the film was brilliant! Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) had the impossible task of making a movie that could live up to the legacy of Chadwick Boseman. I personally thought that the cast and crew did a fantastic job, and I loved every second of the movie.

Design Critiques on YouTube

[Original Post Date: 10/25/22]

Link to Website: https://www.youtube.com/

After learning about best design practices from our guest presenter, MauvƩ Page, I decided to take her lessons and conduct a small design evaluation on a website.

Therefore, I decided to do a quick basic design evaluation on YouTube’s user interface as it is a website I frequent.

Screenshot of YouTube's homepage
Screenshot of YouTube’s Homepage

I first took a look at the contrast and saw that YouTube uses a dark grey background with light grey for all of the text elements. The contrast between the background and the text makes it so that viewers will have an easier time reading the necessary information related to the video at a quick glance.

An example would be as shown within the video underneath where the text elements denote the information of the video such as the title, the uploader, the number of views, and when it was uploaded. Viewers would be able to quickly glance at the text and discern the information being conveyed easily.

Furthermore, the font weight chosen helps establish a hierarchical order. Thicker font weights call for more attention than thinner font weights as they take up more space and are wider, creating more contrast with the background than thinner font weights. Therefore, using thicker weights for the title elements I think was a smart choice by the design team at YouTube. It also helps me discern which text element I should read first, which was the title of the video. For the rest of the test elements, a thinner font weight was used throughout, thus establishing the order to be read from top to bottom.

To add to that, close proximity was used effectively with all of the elements of the video including the images. Due to how all of the elements could be defined in one square, the images and the text elements are associated as one item on YouTube’s homepage. None of the text elements or images overflowed into other video items, thereby eliminating potential confusion as to what text elements belong to what video item.

Screenshot of Markiplier's video titled 'drowning... | RAFT"
Screenshot of Markiplier’s video titled ‘drowningā€¦ | RAFT”

In Summation

Process Post 12

Throughout the entirety of this course, I feel as though I have been very lucky to get to work on a passion project of mine while also working towards a potential future career. I’ve enjoyed the process of getting to sit down and actually write out these posts, though it took me a while to get into the swing of things. You never really realize how much work goes into something until you actually give it a shot yourself. I certainly have a newfound appreciation for all the cooking blogs I mercilessly scrolled through in the past, wondering why they haven’t posted anything in six months. I know that I had it easy, given the fact that I’ve been posting tried and true recipes that have been handed down through my family. Even then, I wasn’t able to get something up every single week like I had wanted to at the beginning. I also think that being able to have an independent, online space for me to work through my personal musings has been incredibly helpful. I didn’t realize how much of my experience with online spaces involved being saturated with targeted content and algorithms until I took a step away from it to create a digital garden space of my own.

Furthermore, I’ve really appreciated getting to learn about each individual aspect that goes into running a website. From the ground up, how business construct their sites can make or break the reach that they might attain. Using keywords, SEO, ads, and looking up the name of your website before settling on a domain are all key parts of making sure that you’re going to be recognized based on what you actually want to represent in your work. Ads themselves are an entirely different ball game, it was incredibly interesting to see a little of the process of how ads come to be and the thought processes behind them. Additionally, I’ve gained so much more experience with running a site through WordPress, and I’m very happy to have re-familiarized myself with the tools given the fact that I will be working with them again next semester in my co-op position.

PUB 101 has been a wonderful class overall, I’ve gained a lot of valuable knowledge and insight on how to best present myself online, and represent the versions of myself I want to be visible. I really enjoyed running Considering Cardamom this semester, and while I know that it will be difficult for me to continue to run the site while in school, I wouldn’t mind having the opportunity to come back to it every now and again to pick up where I left off.

Update on the Audience

This post talks about the audience of my blog after starting to personalize the site more.

Since the last time I posted, I have made quite a bit of change to both the visual and the content visibility of the site. I mentioned in the process post back in October that I would like to make this site feel more like me and start to do something else that is not writing. Since then, I have started uploading podcasts every week and recently posted unedited videos on the site. Surprisingly but not really, I find joy in the uploading process again! Although I know that it will not be perfect like my YouTube videos, I can speak my thoughts and keep those funny little moments. Those moments are the portions that make my posts unique. I laugh at myself, I make jokes, and I ask questions. The audience can be a part of the conversation. Instead of making it a monologue, it is more like a dialogue.

Once I start creating this vlog, I get to put the pressure off as an ā€œInfluencerā€ and become who I am both in person and online. The audience is informed about who I am as a creator through my choice of content on the page. Putting myself outside of my comfort zone during the most stressful semester I have ever experienced, I can feel like myself again. And the audience can feel that! Although I still receive no comments on any posts, I see an increase of numbers in views on my YouTube videos. It would be impossible for people to find my content since I havenā€™t posted anything for the past 3 months, other than checking this blog out! I am excited to see this site grow and see the potential of what I can do as a creator! More to come!

YouTube Identity

This post is meant for mini assignment #5.

For this assignment, we are supposed to create an infographic about ourselves. Although I could more into creating an identity and show my progress as a designer, but it is hard to interpret visually on the skills I have developed in an infographic style. I choose to create a very analytic-style based on my YouTube channel and on how I have grown my identity on there.

My YouTube Analytics from November 29, 2022.

As shown in the image attached on this blog, the infographic represents the numbers of views on different contexts on the channel. The peaks surprisingly happened multiple times after November 15th. I think it was when I started posting more on this blogs. I started being more consistent on here, which attracts more audience onto my blog. I have mentioned a couple of times about my YouTube channel on my podcast and have attached it on my social media section. One of the days that hits the highest views is around November 26th when I posted the gif. That is because I have used a part of my Montreal trip part 1 video to make the gif. In addition, the chosen section reflects my personality when I was with my best friend as an expressive individual. As it comes to the edits, that section plays a lot with emphasizing from zooming in the frame. With that, it was my first visual representation of who I am as an individual online.

This infographic helps me reflect on the importance of consistency. Of course it seems very simple, but it is hard when you’re busy and start to lose the passion on the things you love. I love talking to people, and getting to finally do so on a podcast style or video helps me to find my own passion and show it to others. That’s how people attracts to my blog and YouTube channels. Guess I am not that boring after all!

More Exposure to the Site

This post is for Process Post Prompt on November 22nd, 2022

As for now, my blog has no exposure outside of the classroom. I have never thought about publishing outside since it is not my best work nor do I have the time to perfect it. However, the current layout of the site has a stronger organizational system for the content. So, thinking about the exposure of my site might be a step I can consider soon.

I am thinking of bringing my blog up on YouTube and Instagram since those are the two top social media platforms I use currently to, not only have fun but also create a consistent online identity. On both platforms, I have the freedom to be expressive through my knowledge of graphic design, as well as showing my editing skills for images and videos. One thing that I love about both platforms is how visual they are in attracting the audience. Since I am hoping to make my site more visual-based, I think it would be a great idea to include that on YouTube and Instagram. In addition, both platforms are the ones I have the most conversations with. I would get messages, asking about courses and the program, on those platforms. I also get reactions and comments from the audience under my posts. These tell me that I can engage with my targeted audience. So, hopefully, with the addition of my blog to this existing online exposure, I will be able to incorporate more transmedia integration. On top of this discussion, it ties back to one of the process posts on analytics. With more exposure, the more audience I would get more for this site. The dialogue will be created between them and myself on the content I upload weekly, which is exciting to hear!

Rose Island Design Analysis

This process post is for October 18th, 2022. 

In this post, I choose theĀ Rose Island websiteĀ as the website that I will be analyzing the design elements of it. The reason I choose to write about this site is that several simple interactions on the site still make it interesting. It is one of my favourite websites because I am interested in interaction design, so hopefully, I could pursue that path!

The part that is doing well is the visual graphics on the homepage. There is a clear hierarchy of what content the user has to look at, starting from the title to the 3D model of the house to the subtitles. The colours and font choices are strongly driving the website. The site uses light grey, orange and black as the main colour palette, with monochromatic images. The geometric shapes of the font, match the structure of the house that the site is going to focus on. On top of that, the body copy font choice is circular, contrasting with the title and creating balance in the tone. The content’s placement is symmetric, with asymmetric organization within the content section.Ā 

The homepage of the Rose Island website

Another element that is working quite well is the transition between sections. It is my favourite part about this website! I found this very unique and make the site very special. This transition applies to other sections of the site, such as hovering on buttons. This transition shows the grid system used on the site and it is a cool way to put it into use. In the image I have attached below, the monochromic image and the black background are complementing each other, making the transition look even smoother.

The transition from the bleeding image section and the text section

The one comment I would have that is working but not to its full potential is the scrolling effects on the text. As in the image below, the user has the scroll all the way through to highlight all the text. Visually, yes it is very pleasing to see, but talking in terms of interactions, it is not working. This is very demanding for the user to complete, especially since the user interacts with the site mostly only through scrolling to find content.

The texts are highlighted after the user scrolls down the page

My recommendation for this site is, instead of fading word by word, they could work on the animation to create asymmetric balance on the white space more. For example, as the user scrolls, the whole content shows up all at once or comes out behind the image.


Overall, I still think it is a very strong website. I want to get inspired by their brand style to create my branding for my site. This includes the solid colour palette, image treatment and font choices on the site. I would also like to play more with the interactions on the site!

Analytics on the Blog

This post is for Process Post Prompt on November 8th, 2022.
On the day we set Google Analytics on our site, I had a vaccination appointment for the flu and COVID booster, so I did not join the class. I set the analytics on November 14th, so I will be talking about the days after that.

Analytics shows the progress and interactions my blog has with my audience. It shows the clicks, interactions, views, where the audience finds my site etc. Knowing the behaviour of the audience can help me improve and see the content they are most interested in or interact with. From the creator’s side, I see quite a peak around November 20th-23rd. The contents I posted during those times were the peer review and my first video on this blog. The analysis shows that the number peaks due to the number of visits to the homepage. However, the second top number of visits is the peer review. Not going to lie, I am quite surprised that the top numbers are not related to my public posts. I thought that showing my content based on my existing identity online could help with the numbers. Instead, I learn that maybe my content is not showing that. Back then, I had a different theme for the site. The site, unfortunately, did not show any visuals nor feel that personalized since I was in the process of fixing it. Without identity, I failed to direct users to other pages and content on my blog. This can help me to think more about the thumbnail or first impression of the site. I can think of the visuals on the homepage and accessibility of the site to attract more users.

My current analytics on the blog

Currently, the site is consistent with only one or two viewers every week. I am not that surprised since everyone is wrapping up their semester right now. I have updated the theme and worked on the accessibility of the site. Of course, getting more numbers on the analytics is ideal, but I have no control over that. I am just going to keep working on the site as something I enjoy and see how that goes. Maybe, I could make this site more public on my social media. Using that to my advantage could help the exposure of the site.

Reflection on Peer Review #2

This process post is for November 8th, 2022 on the feedback I have received from the peer review #2 made by Isha Hoonjan.

In the post, she said that she could clearly understand the content I am trying to portray from the design I chose. Before the current theme, I chose another theme as the image attached.Ā 

The homepage of my site

However, her comments were on the lack of imagery and accessibility of the site. Even if the colour choices and my logo help to bring the lively side out, the content layout conveyed something different. She mentioned that all the content seemed to be structured in the same way, making the whole site feel too professional. She put some links for inspiration as well, very sweet of her. Another suggestion she made is to add more categories in the menu to convey different types of posts I was making.Ā 

After receiving the feedback, I decided to change the theme of the site because they did not have the elements I would like to change. I saw the feedback quite interesting, on the contrast between the design and the layout of the content. At the time, I was focusing on the content and not the design as much. The fact that she, as the audience, could tell is kind of funny. Of course, it can be problematic as well. From this review, I needed to learn how to balance between content and design to keep my audience being engaged.

Display Content on Site

This process post is for October 28th, 2022.

To improved my site, I would need to make site looks more interesting by the use of images as featured imaged for each post. Currently, the site is covered with texts (yikes) since I just changed my theme that is more clean and less “chaotic” than the last one. I am also planning to show summary for each post with maximum 10 words, so that the pages don’t look too intense with all the posts expand out.

The images and summary of the posts will help audience not feel overwhelm and check if the post is something they are interested in reading. Since I already have quite interesting titles for each post already, these are the missing elements for my site that would help everything more interesting. The problem is…would I figure it out before the peer review #2? I guess we will find out later…