Changing the look of my blog

I experimented with lots of menu options to change the look of my blog. I ended up with something very similar to my original choice of colours and theme but with something extra added.

There were several ways that I browsed through menu items:

• 1.     1^st was along the lines of: Blogger page; Left hand headings; choose Theme; Click customize; Choose Background; In Change Background box, click downward arrow, choose from one of the options appearing in the pop-up box; I chose patterns; The pop-up box for patterns contains a huge range of backgrounds – colourful and monochrome stencil designs, photographs, digital art, etc. I chose the image of fire on a black background.
• 2.     On the https://julesworldz.blogspot.com/ page, there is a “Design” heading in the top R-hand corner.  I clicked that. It then led me to the Themes page. That led me to the same location - where I was able to explore all of the above.

My Original Choice:

When, right at the very beginning of this, our teacher asked us to give our new blog background a colour, I chose a theme instead, from the Themes menu on left hand menu bar (Blogger page). The theme I chose was called “Watermark” -  a folky artificial / drawn/ simplistic 2D-art style landscape, green earth, blue grass and sky, white flowers.  It suited the title of my blog - the “Worldz” bit, and suited me – the earth loving, folky, simplicity loving part. I also liked how it conveyed Worlds/Places/Communities, without being concrete and specific. By being a 2D drawn image, it can allow the imagination to go anywhere, rather than somewhere in particular. That is important to me – to open up the reader’s mind to what I am talking about, what anyone is talking about, and to keep an open mind about world possibilities (possibilities in general), in all of my discussions.  

It wasn’t possible to change the colours within this particular theme, completely. The green and blue suited me, reminded me of a fabulous skirt my whole bunch of girlfriends bought me once (which suited me too) and the colours I tend to dress in the most. Also, it reminded me of earth & the colours are positive, which I think is important here. I am not trying to provide bleak advice to anyone here. I am simply trying to communicate. I think that it’s important to offer colours that enable openness for the audience, thus, I chose a theme containing colours that are instinctly positive to me when I look at them.

And then:

I added fire! 

When my assignment paper asked me to change the colours of my blog, that is when I did all the experimenting above. I eventually found the interesting options in the Change Backgrounds bit and fell for the fire straight away. The fire reminds me of something about me. It is another natural element. It brings the dark-side in – without bringing too much negativity in. It is the yang to the boring ol’ yin of my initially chosen blue and green nicey folky garden. Fire reminds me of my favourite colour – Red -  and an an aspect of my character that feels like a strength, but one I hide a bit, so I’ll say no more...) (- And it may not be what you think!).

I like what the fire has done to my page. It’s added interest. It’s brought a quirky, off centre, none-too-planned and not to matchy matchy perfect & stable element to the design.

Clarity:

Ultimately, what I found myself seeking was a combo of something that suited my blog’s title and it’s description, something that made my blog posts appear with clarity (not too much of a busy background or too much transparency – were some considerations), and something that suited me, my character, my ramblings.  There was an almost excellent other choice – that of a very BANAL WORLD – an image of a dusty barren open dirt-desert place, with an electricity tower and a whole heap of dusty blue sky. Perfect. But too specific a world. Abstract was my go.

And if you got this far, thank you for listening. You shouldn't have, really!  - It's a wonder I even had you at the large print! Over.