Technical aspects: This blog was made from short tutorials with basic effects and how to hand-make your own two-column website. I eventually deviated immensely from this tutorial and took a few codes from other makers who provided them for free. These codes were only used for effects, such as picture fading, and the drop-down menu box. These involved scripts and complicated code.With my very basic knowledge of CSS and html, I felt this was necessary. Otherwise I learned from reading articles and from the w3school website! They were very thorough and had a library of codes to learn from.
Up to this day, my largest challenge was beginning to code. I enjoy the aesthetics of tumblr themes (not Tumblr provided but by tumblr users) and so wanted to create a website that has the simplicity of them. However, I had used the tutorial from the link above. This tutorial was design to specifically make tumblr themes and thus had a lot of meta tags. I had a fun challenge reading the code and reinterpreting them to code efficiently in two separate documents (the users of tumblr are advanced to the point they can style inside their html) and also as a regular website. Another challenge was to some little trinkets to work, especially involving javascript, which I ended up just scrapping anyways. Instead of trying to solve it, I felt alright with abandoning them for something better, and easier to code. Sometimes the more complicated and fancy effects are not essential to the overall design of the website.
Ideal Website: My initial vision for this website was completely different. I was hoping for something more calming, quiet, colored with grey scale, and minimalist. But as evident from the website, I completely coded a different vision. I felt this design gave me more freedom to make a website that truly expresses me as a person. If I had more knowledge about code, I would fill the empty space with perhaps another column that can harbor moving tabs. I would also really like to dive into more features of CSS3, like moving backgrounds, animation, and transitions.
Modes: I would say that my website included almost all of the modes. With linguistic, I definitely did not have a professional tone and was very casual and whimsical. I hope this will help the audience see that I'm definitely a laid-back, friendly, and a freaky person. The quotes I pulled for each page in the sidebar also are fun rather than serious.
With visual... it's very pink and cute. The layout is simple, just filled with choice of pictures. Everything is mostly pixel related, so they're very small rather than large. This was I hope the audience will get the sense that I really like cute things. Also maybe uncomfortable about how pink it is haha.
Aural I incorporated a music player into the website that has songs that I feel fits the mood of the website. Cheerful, soft, and cute. Hopefully with the audio being played, the audience can feel the intended atmosphere I wanted.
Spatial wise, I wanted to give the audience a website where there's a lot of space (but not entirely empty) to not feel too constrained. I put spaces in between everything that needed to be separate, especially bodies of text, like the side bar. The title has a space underneath it for a brief description, then another space to transition to links.
Not sure if this counts as gestural, but I put a lot of animated gifs, which provide gesture to the website. Especially the dancing ones! I felt this brought movement to a mostly static medium. This I hope made the audience felt that the website was not so still and boring, that it has life and spunk to it.
Design Strategies: With audience, I knew this website was meant for peers, so I felt I shouldn't be too professional and that I could have fun with expressing myself to others. Although, I am quite shy, so I wanted to do so without putting my face out there, personal pictures of friends/family, or with any personal information. I wanted this website to be me, without people knowing who exactly I am. Like a persona.
With context, I provided external links in my website that goes to websites that relate to mine. Adventure Time's website for the fact that I used their image as the prominent feature. The Canvas Cycle in appreciation of pixel art which the website is mainly based off of, and the WSU website because, well, I'm a student and the context of this would provide an understanding that I'm still in college and not a professional worker yet.
With the pinkness, pixels and soft colors, and minimalist layout, I really hope the audience will see with these design choices that I'm delicate in a sense. I did not include any boldness or sharpness in my website, I wanted soft and light to be the perceived theme.
Genre wise, I think my website really dabbles into a blog of some sorts. Although not the conventional one where my personal life is visible. Is this a conventional website? I don't think so. So while the website genre fits in both, I didn't stick to the layout or theme. However this most definitely fits into the genre of tumblr themes (particularly in pixel related ones).
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