Post 6

The blog “we make money not art” was created by an artist-engineer who is also a teacher that focuses on the intersections of design, art, and new technologies. The first thing that you see when you go to the website is a pink bar, stretching across the top of the page with a break in it for a search bar. In the title, we make money not art, all of the words but art are a lighter pink, making it harder to read than the word art this is in white and stands out clearly from the background. I am not sure why the title is laid out like this, but possibly to place an emphasis on the word art since the creator of the blog is an art teacher.

The blog is laid out in a fairly simple manner; black text on a white background in a simple font, making it easy to read everything. The page is divided into three columns; the main one on the left is the column that contains the major content of the blog, including numerous pictures in each blog. The second one in right next to the main column, this ones contains contacts, links to events, sub-categories that are within the blog, and a place for people to sign up for daily updates. The second column is not as bland as the main one is, it contains colorful text that catch the readers attention. The third column is for advertisements or websites that support the blog itself.

After looking at this blog, it is obvious that pictures do help to captivate and maintain the reader’s attention; it provides a brief break from focusing just on the words of the post. The hyperlinks that are incorporated in the blog, and in every post of the blog’s page, are not easy to distinguish from the rest of the writing. They are not underlined or in a different color from the rest of the font, they are instead just in bold text which, without scrolling over with my mouse, I would have never assumed were hyperlinks but just bold words within the post for emphasis. Also, the three columns are of very different lengths. The main column of the blog is extremely long in comparison to the others; the second column is longer than the third. The staggering in the length of the columns is rather unappealing.

In comparison to this blog, I like the overall layout of mine a lot more. I like the fact that the columns are equal length and the blog itself does not continue for what seems like an indefinite amount of time, like the main one seems to in “we make money not art.” I do like the fact that the blog incorporates a lot of pictures; it makes the blog more visually appealing and stimulating. Also, after realizing that the bolded words were indeed hyperlinks, I realized how helpful it is to have numerous hyperlinks that take the reader to websites that are related to the original post that may enhance the reader’s understanding of the post. It was interesting to see what a blog that is frequently visited looks like in comparison to those that we have made for the class.