This blog will comprise a collection of ephemera, mess and miscellaneous artifacts reflecting on the writer's life.

Monday, December 19, 2005

The everyday life of blogs


In the manner of Radio Three, who are devoting the whole of this week to Bach, I will devote the whole of this week to blogs, after which time the blog will take a small but well-deserved break.
This is because it is a half term since I started blogging and I wanted to reflect on it.
Today's post is about the visual affordances of blogs.
I notice that people draw on the affordances Blogger offers differently.
Dr Joolz often takes up the whole page for her pictures.
Dr Rob often fills a whole page with writing and you have to scroll down and he goes OVER THE PAGE which is very transgressive.
Guy and I like neat pictures on the left.
Anya is always inventive but doesnt take up much space.
Mary Plain decorates her blog beautifully, as an artifact.
But we all use the affordances of Blogger differently.
For example, it feels wrong to me when the picture is on the right.
This is like the notion from this book that even bloggers are replicating internal Grammars of visual design.
Do you agree?
What about colour?
We haven't yet discussed links or sound.
Watch this space.

4 comments:

Guy Merchant said...

Interesting post, this. And a nice picture on the right with wrap around text! I like mine how it is, but from time to time it gets a bit of a makeover. It would be fun to chart these little changes - I get the feeling they re-awaken our interest a bit like new stationery can.

Joolz said...

Yes this is an interesting post, I agree.
Funnily enough, I rarely use the Blogger software to upload and place my pictures, simply because when I started blogging this was not available on blogger.
I got in the habit therefore of using Flickr for this and always enjoy my detour out.
And of course this is what Blogger wants to avoid us doing. Owned by Google, Blogger wants to keep us away from flickr (owned by Yahoo.)
In this way the visual affordances of blogging is affected by caitalist competition.
This is another example of Literacy as an unsocial practice.

Mary Plain said...

and of course my design is partly affected by my limited ability with Blogger- don't know how to do those big pictures that Dr Joolz does- and with Flickr which I don't use enough! But this is very interesting DrKate.

Kate said...

Thanks everyone as this bit of thinking needs all of your help as I think you know more than me!