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The blog before I changed it[/caption]In a previous post, I described how I initially decided on the look for my Knower's Arc blog. Now everything has to change: function, layout, appearance and content. It's nice when you get it right at the start (which I didn't). Otherwise you need to intervene and fix it. Here goes.
a new function
There are two ways in which I generate material for my Theory of Knowledge course: I create online slideshows to support the teaching and I collect online stimuli to inspire student presentations. I would like to curate all of these materials in one place. Thus, the blog needs to acquire pages where my resources will live.
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Now it's a blogsite[/caption]a new layout
I considered a few alternatives (Google sites, Wordpress, Weebly, Wix, Wikispaces, Squarespace...) but eventually decided to stay put on Blogger rather than re-build the site from scratch. Beside the existing blog and tag cloud, I have created pages to house resources for each of the main topics (about 20). It's pretty text heavy, but that seemed to me the most efficient way for all of the links to be on the homepage. The categories are based on the course organisation which all of its users understand. You can't tell, maybe, but there were many versions of the layout before I arrived at this which works best for me. I also changed the picture but I couldn't say why I chose the new one. It looked right.
a new appearance
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Goethe's wheel connects colour and emotion[/caption]Leonardo, Newton and Goethe all had theories which expressed their beliefs about what colour is and the emotion it evokes. They did not agree. None of them knew anything about hexadecimal colour codes which reduce all colour to a logical system understood by websites. Nonetheless, it is generally agreed by modern designers that colour and emotion are related. Do all cultures react the same way to colours though? Some research suggests not. So maybe someone's colour theory tells us more about the person than about colour itself. If you're going to break the rules, though, it's better to know them.
My first colour scheme combined colours from van Gogh's paintings. I suppose I thought that one of art's great aesthetic sensibilities couldn't be wrong, but why should that work for an entirely different purpose? Time to try something different. I'm not going to use someone else's palette. I'll make my own.
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Paletton.com's wheel is based on logic[/caption]Paletton.com is an amazing free tool. This is my chance to play with it. I used it to make some themes.
- Monochromatic blue based on a tone in the banner photo which I sampled with the excellent ColorZilla Chrome extension.
- Triad yellow based on van Gogh's sunflowers + two adjacent colours chosen by eye).
- Triad purple based on the colour of my Physics website + two distant colours chosen by eye.
- Tetrad of colours separated by Golden Ratio.
Flick through the slides to see the four schemes I tried.
In this process, I have learned a lot about colour; triads and tetrads; brightness, saturation and hue. In the end though, I will use the green theme just because it looks right to me. The colours are quite restful which I think may be due to their proximity in the wheel (but it's an emotional rather than a rational choice). I am too close to the result to judge whether it is actually an upgrade.
What I have learned about resources which are created online is that they are never finished. If you look at the KA blog today, you will probably see a different version from the one below.
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The final version for now[/caption]
Steve, I have to chuckle at this final project because I have no choice but to both cringe at the green, but pat you on the back for thoroughly defending your choice. Assessing your design decisions is such a subjective process for me! I provided some feedback on your third post about your site - I'm assuming you saw that but felt otherwise at this stage. Your site has to be a labor of love, so if you disagree with my points, no problem at all. One point to note - you said, "My first colour scheme combined colours from van Gogh’s paintings. I suppose I thought that one of art’s great aesthetic sensibilities couldn’t be wrong, but why should that work for an entirely different purpose? " - I know you may be joking but just to point out that what was (or is) relevant with 2D mediums such as painting doesn't translate to reading on a screen. We have to consider things like readability, dynamic design for resizing for mobile devices, font readability, contrast, etc. A three column website also may have difficulty scaling for those reading on a mobile device. Personally, I think your left column could be combined with the right as it seems like a bit of overkill with menus... I find myself searching unnecessarily for info since there's not a clear hierarchy of info.
ReplyDeleteNow take all of this with a grain of salt. It's highly subjective feedback, and I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't give you some things to think about. If you decide to re-design again in the future, these are things to consider. But ultimately it has to be something you enjoy yourself.
You did a wonderful job of clarifying the thinking behind the scenes of your design shift. That thinking and acknowledgement of the design process is what we're hoping to embed in you for the long term. In that respect, you've certainly succeeded.
Thanks Brandon. Yes, me too. I very much appreciate your design advice (cringe is not too strong a word). I know you're right: the colour scheme was my favourite of the four, but I'm more happy with what I learned than what I achieved. I valued your feedback in week 3 and it may not have come across, but I did try to follow it in terms of lightening the background. Probably Blogger, with its limited options, is not up to the task I have set myself but it was an interesting experiment to see what I could do with it and to restrict myself to learning about colour. You suggested drop-down menus, and you're right, but they don't do them. The learning curve for a new medium was just too steep in the time available.
ReplyDelete