Friday, December 12, 2008

Project Green: Blogs

I was looking over the weekly handout about project green. I thought this is as good a place as any to get my thoughts together.
Here are some professional sites I enjoy:
Smashing Magazine
The Dieline
These sites function in highlighting design inspiration and techniques, but also serve as a platform to make themselves important players in the design industry. I'm drawn to them because they are routinely updated and include a variety of works--SM highlights creative inspiration posts right next to useful CSS tools next to Photoshop brushes; and The Dieline focuses on all types of packaging from labels to inventive repackaging (a re-useable, recycled-paper, water bottle!). I can't think of much that I don't like about them, which is probably why I go them everyday.

Also great blog, undesign related: 101 Cookbooks very clean layout and simple layout, but it really adds a calming feel which I think she is purposely trying to go for.

However, musician blogs I find tend to leave the most lacking. Everyone and everyone is supposed to have a blog. Yet, many people miss the point of a blog when they only update every few months. I feel that blogs are supposed to gain a regular readership and that'll only happen if there's something to read. For instance Kimya Dawson, her "News" page should act as a professional blog of anything newsworthy, however it went a whole year without being updated. I know she was not completely newsworthy from 2007-2008. But her diary--not for professional purposes--is updated with complete regularity. So, I guess that's something that irks me. You'd think they would want to really utilize this tool to maintain a strong fan base.

I really enjoyed doing this, because keeping a blog is something that I've been intending to do, but hadn't gotten around to it. I think there are three main divisions of things I post--intellectual curiosities, examples and personal work. I will probably redesign this blog with that in mind. I'm also considering switching to a different platform, or really looking more into Blogger, because there are some layout/design things that I'd like to fix. Nothing has really been difficult in maintaining this, I'm surprised that I've always found something to post about... maybe lack of readership/comments is disappointing. I'd like to have more of an ongoing conversation, but are blogs really conversations or just one sided presentations with a small Q&A (usually just questions) at the end?

3 comments:

adam. said...

alright alright. i do understand your disapproval in musicians updating their blogs less often than they should. it is actually almost every musician who has a blog, with the exception of greenleafmusic.com which is updated almost daily (maybe because more than one person posts there). BUT the main reason for this is, musicians aren't thinking about blogging as a required part of their day. they are hopefully concerned with making better music for you. maybe give them a small small break?

Sam Ricks said...

I've really enjoyed your blog.

I haven't ever really seen a good musician's blog. Interesting point, there. Sorry I haven't been commenting in a while. I'm still up for the crossword challenge.

h. van de mark said...

Adam--I meant to add in my post that if musicians are at that level that they want to keep a blog (a daily interactive converstaion) rather than just posting the occasional news item, they should hire someone to do it. ahem, not that I'm suggesting anything...

Sam--Thanks! I assure you the enjoyment is mutual. I'll let you know about the crosswords b/c I would like to do it too. Maybe when you send out that list with everyone's email, I'll send something out.