This week, I had the pleasure of going through the website of one of my peers. Astro is a blog run by Adam Shivji, a second year business student who uses the platform to write about his appreciation for visual and digital art. Based on the About page, it seems that Adam’s intent with the blog is to provide a platform for minority artists who are talented but do not have the resources to become better known as others who might be more privileged. The blog in and of itself is beautiful, with pieces of visual art presented throughout, it sticks to the purpose of the blog and does not allow the reader to forget what kind of content they are here for. Furthermore, the integration of art into the overall theme of the blog ensures that the artists Adam intends to support through the creation of this blog receive the exposure that they deserve. As a note for moving forwards, it would be really cool to see the images changing every so often, or for them to be updated into different images every month or so in order to give multiple artists the same kind of exposure, as well as giving audiences something to look forward to when they log back into the site!
Aside from the visual aesthetics of the site, I think that the organization looks really nice. The text is easy to read and makes sense with the context of the blog. The website is easy to navigate, and everything seems to be labeled well.
On a constructive note, I personally would recommend taking out any information on the blog that comes from the template and either replace it with the correct information or leave it blank for now. When first logging on to the site, I saw links to posts such as “Secret of Making Smoked Pork” and “40 Truly Amazing Blueberry Recipes”. When I saw these at the bottom of the home page, my initial instinct was to think that the website was a cooking blog rather than one for art appreciation! To avoid confusion as to what the blog is about, I suggest removing the sample posts that come with the template used. This will make your blog look emptier for sure, but will make more sense for your audience. As the semester goes, you will obviously have more content and the site will look more full. Additionally, I would also recommend editing the FAQ page to have questions pertaining to your content rather than an arbitrary subject picked by the theme developers.
Overall, I think that the site’s design and organization are beautiful. The about section is strong and I think that it gives a strong idea of who the author is and what the content of the blog will be. The only thing I would recommend is for that clear idea of the online self and voice to be translated to the other parts of the blog cohesively. I look forward to seeing more progress posts in the coming week!
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