PUB 101: My Blog My Way

Today I attempt to answer that question burning in all of your minds: How did my blog become the way it is today? (I'm kidding by the way, this topic would hardly rank in the top ten of anyone's need-to- know list.) The answer is a long, rambling story that I will try my best to condense in consideration of my valued Publishing 101 readers. My blog started off as a random outlet for my daily doings, musings, and somewhat quirky DIY projects. It was haphazard, ill-planned, and had little format. Eventually, however, my blog started to evolve and take on a life of its own when I began to immerse myself within the fashion blogging community. "What Doffy Does" became a more purpose-driven place in which I expressed my weekly doings, my favourite fashion trends, and sluggishly developed my photography (and outfit-post-taking) skills.

These changes came about as a result of constantly (perhaps even obsessively) browsing the blogs of my favourite fashionistas and wishing that I could create similar content nearly as appealing as theirs. For instance, from the blogs "Her Waise Choice" by Jen Tam, "Alicia Fashionista" by Alicia Quan, and "Brooklyn Blonde" by Helena, I discerned that simplicity, white spaces, well-designed banners, and tabs made all the difference in a personal style blog's appearance. Instead of the messy, cluttered, and chaotically-coloured blogs of my youth, I longed to create a blog theme that screamed 'simplicity' and 'elegance.' I also used Google to find other ways to simplify my blog design; for example, I googled a way to create icons for my social media accounts instead of having tabs on the side labelled "Twitter," "Pinterest," "Instagram," "Tumblr," and "Bloglovin'." Although I tried to avoid flashy or annoying pop-ups (ie. music players) on my page, I did include a slideshow of my latest Instagram posts on the right-hand column that I thought added to the appeal of my blog. I as well attempted to not add too many gadgets on the right-hand column other than a blog archiving tool, some Google Sense ads (which were removed when I changed my domain name), Google Friend Connect (aka GFC), and a few other select gadgets.

Additionally, I received many great tips from the handy site "Independent Fashion Bloggers," an online publication dedicated to helping fledgling personal style bloggers find their way in the blogging world. In regard to my blog design, the post "6 Simple Design Tweaks to Make Your Blog Better" was particularly useful in influencing my decisions on the matter. For instance, I learned that photos must be neither too large nor too small, of equal size, and should be taken with a camera of decent quality.

This leads me to my next great breakthrough in my blogging ventures: my camera. Long before I purchased my first DSLR camera, I found myself gazing at the amazing pictures being posted by popular bloggers with their insanely expensive Canons and Nikons and wishing that I could attain photo-quality and creativity of nearly such levels. My boyfriend was quite clueless on the matter; he thought that my point-and-shoot camera's capabilities were more than enough until I forced him to look at countless pictures of amazing depth, perception, and innovative angles that were only possible with a decent DSLR. Finally, I was able to buy a secondhand Canon DSLR at a greatly reduced price from a local photographer whom I had met through a previous job. A whole new world of possibilities suddenly opened for me and I began my journey into creating better and more interesting pictures for my blog, whether they were of my outfits, my travels, or delicious food. I admit that my skills are still very amateurish but I hope that with more practice, better lenses (hellooo Boxing Day sales!), and dedicated photographer friends, I will be able to post inspired and creative photos that will better draw in my audience.

Anywho, that is a brief overview of why I made my blog appear the way it does; I just hope that this riveting account gave you some ideas for any blogging fantasies of your own and didn't make you check your watch to see how much time you had wasted...

Sources:

Glazer, Helena. Brooklyn Blonde. Available at: www.brooklynblonde.com

Tam, Jennifer. her waise choice {a Vancouver personal style blog ; Vancouver fashion blog}. Available at: www.herwaisechoice.com

Quan, Alicia. Alicia Fashionista. Available at: www.aliciafashionista.com

Reiter, Gretchen. "6 Simple Design Tweaks to Make Your Blog Better." Independent Fashion Bloggers. June 21, 2013. Available at: http://heartifb.com/2013/06/21/6-simple-design-tweaks-make-your-blog-better/