It's time to reflect

Creating a blog is a great way to share things; your stories, advice, news issues, just about anything but that doesn't mean people will actually read it. The main thing I learnt when creating this blog was just how hard it is write posts that are engaging and interesting, posts that will make readers subscribe and want to see more and more. How do you know what to write about? You don't. I think the only thing you can do is trial and error. Write something and if you don't get good reactions then, try again. Write about what interests you and I'm sure there will be someone else who is interested too.

Throughout writing this blog, I learnt a lot about good design. I learnt that there needs to be consistency. You can't just throw things on the page, there needs to be a pattern, something that will assist your readers. It's also very important to reference material that you have used from another source but you can't let these references interrupt your readers. Reading a blog is quite casual, so it's a good idea to put references at the end of a post, rather than in the middle of text.

In relation to designing my blog, I wanted to use a layout that would be easy to read. I feel that the layout I used allows a good amount of white space which makes it easy on the eyes. The way in which it lays out the posts helps guide the readers eyes from one post to another. It ensures headings are significantly emphasised in comparison to the rest of the text.

But not everybody likes blogs...

I think blogs are great though! You can use them for just about anything from writing your personal stories to giving advice. It allows people to find other people who share the same interests and form some sort of a bond over these shared interests. It gives people a reason to write aimlessly and feel important, like someone is listening to them. People can feel like they are helping someone by giving them advice and sharing their tips. It gives people a chance to voice their opinion to people who care or to argue their point.

Blogs allowed me to share my opinions on document designing, even if people didn't care about it. It gave me the chance to share, teach and help other people.

So, thank you for reading my blog!

Image source: Productivite

Which blog says what?

There are many different types of blogs, below I'll name a few and give you a description on them so you know what kinds of blog interest you.

• Pamphleteering blogs: this blogs consists of individual people or groups of people who are arguing a case or pushing a cause. Most of the time they are responding to facts that other people who posted on a blog or that has been reported in mainstream media. Example:  Buckeye State Blog. You will notice this blog focuses a lot on pushes the authors opinion on politics.
• The digest blog: this blogs allows people to summarise, and sometimes put in their own opinion, about things that have been reported in mainstream media. Example:  Progressive Blog Digest. This blog states at the top of the page that it will consist of things from news site combined with the authors own observations. 
• The popular mechanics blog: this type of blogs focuses on giving advice and training on specific fields, interests and hobbies. Example: Strobist. This blog gives advice solely on photography. 
• The diary: as the name states, it is used for people to publish things about their lives - to write a diary.
• The exhibition blogs: this blog are wrote by writers, craftspeople and artists who use these blogs to share their work and ideas. Example: Around the World in 20 Quilts. This blog is obviously maintained by craftspeople who make quilts and then share these quilts with the world.

I'd also like to mention a couple more blogs that focus on document design. 

• Karlen Communications: this blog discusses document design and other issues surrounding design. I think this blog is a popular mechanics blog. The author gives tips and advice about designing documents.
• Tampa Bay Times: this blog is a digest blog. It provides summaries and information about things in mainstream media. 

Australian Policy Online, Margaret Simons, 11 Sept 2008 Towards a taxonomy of blogs

What is new technology doing to our newspapers?

Newspapers are not a significant part of many peoples, particularly young peoples, lives. This is because people have turned to online newspapers because people now have so many options for what to do with their lives and it used to be that a newspaper could provide things for people to do. However, many families are working families which consists of people who are rushed for time so they don't spend the time reading newspapers like people used to. Also, newspapers online are fast and more engaging and exciting. Online newspapers provide more choices for readers.

Another thing that is changing newspapers is the fact that everything that is in newspapers is available on the internet, for example, instead of searching through the classifieds section, people are just using websites such as E-bay and Gumtree to find the things they wish to purchase.

Transcript: Radio National: Sunday Profile

Blogging is also affecting newspapers in a significant way. They are a good way tool for journalists to use and gather information which will make them become better reporters. Professional journalists now have the opportunity to publish their work independently on the internet.

The availability of free news on the internet has weakened the readers attachment or loyalty to a newspaper.

"No body really knows what the future of a newspaper really is" - Jay Rosen.

Transcript: Radio National: The Media Report

New technology has made document designers seriously consider how they design a document. As mentioned in a previous blog post, most documents are now designed for online reading too, which means designers need to consider how their document will appear on screen and how readable it will be.

Image source: Zimbio