Components: Critical Reflection

Connotation

The visual style of this section of my blog is the same as the first section. The background is pink and the headlines and titles are purple. These colors convey a girly theme to represent my personality. The colors in the blog catch the reader’s eyes, accomplishing one of the main goals of the style. The only thing that might be improved upon is the font color of the body of the blog. The light gray color might make it difficult for some to see against the light pink background. Choosing a darker gray would be one way to fix this problem. It would be helpful to get input from others because the style of the blog does reflect my taste and personality. Different audiences may prefer different colors or themes. However, I tried to make sure that each assignment effectively conveyed its own meaning without too much of my preference put into it. For example, in my Color Echo post I followed the exercise instructions by pulling colors from the fruit in the bowl when choosing background and font colors. I avoided using colors that I thought were “pretty” and instead chose colors that helped make the image flow.

Attributes

I am overall pleased with the visual weight, structure, color and presentational style of my blog portfolio. For example, I like that images such as the ones in my Word Portrait post have a white background. When coloring the background is not part of the assignment it is helpful to keep it white rather than transparent in order to keep it from blending into the background of the blog. Linework in my Gestalt Principles and Icons post could be tweaked. The image of the icon I created a good representation of a wrench, however, making the lines a little thicker and steadier would make it have more of a professionally drawn feel. The black background in my icon makes the wrench stick out nicely. As I mentioned before, I tried to stay away from using my favorite colors in every assignment. There is a variety of colors used throughout each component. Although each assignment is not composed using the same colors, overall they fit nicely together in the blog portfolio. By keeping each post in the same format the blog conveys a sense of flow. All of the compositions could be used for several different uses. For example, the image in the Legibility and Text Safe Areas post could be used as an invitation, e-card, poster, etc. The font size in each composition and in the blog body is large enough for the intended audience to read. The fonts in each composition were specifically chosen to convey each given message. I am happy with my choice in fonts for each assignment and the body of the blog.

Placement

Each assignment deserves some attention. There are some that are more complex and may take more time than others. This is shown by how much description is given. For example, the post Second Life Prims seems to have the least amount of writing beneath it. This is because the assignment was to simply create a prim in the Second Life program. There was not much of a deeper meaning other than to experience the complexity of computer simulations. The lines, dates, and titles separating each post are completely necessary. These allow the audience to see where one concept ends and another begins. Each is separated but still follows the same format. All of the images are centered, except for the ones included in the Word Portrait post. These are not centered because there were so many of them it made sense to wrap the text around them. However, in order to maintain the visual flow, it might have been a good idea to center these like the rest.