Blog Post #1: Design

When it comes to blogs, design is almost everything; with graphics you can control what people will think of your blog before even reading the first post. When people look at my blog page, I want them to feel relaxed and interested. I used one of the watermark templates that has a meadow with the sky and a flower thoughtfully placed in the top right corner as the background. These graphics are very natural and simple. Through the basic simplicity of the design, I want to portray that my blog posts will be short and sweet but yet full of insight and carefully planned. The light blue and green colors in my template also help establish the intended mood. According to an article on color by Kendra Cherry, blue is "often described as peaceful, tranquil, secure, and orderly." The orange-red color used for my links puts emphasis on them and distinguishes them from the rest of the blog because of their warm color. The white font of my title corresponds with the white flower in the corner and creates a uniform, pure feel.

The two main fonts that I used throughout my blog are Indie Flower and Puritan. I used Indie Flower for the title and main headings because it looks a lot like my own handwriting. Indie Flower is also a more artistic, curvy font and according to an article on typography by Carrie Cousins fonts like this can "quickly establish a mood and work best when used at large sizes."  It's simple, neat, feminine, and asthetically pleasing. It also gives the blog more of a natural, traditional pen and paper feel.  I did not use Indie Flower as the font for my posts because it can be hard to read in the smaller font and could distract readers from the content of my blog posts. I chose Puritan for the blog posts because it is modern and professional but not over used and more unique than other similar looking san serif fonts.