Hi folks! I wanted to talk about the design principles that Mauve Page talked about last lecture, and how I’ve tried to implement them into my blog. She discussed five (5) main design principles: balance, rhythm, proportion, contrast, and unity.

Balance: Throughout my website, I tried to use images to help balance out all the white space. Specifically, in my blog post about anticipated releases for 2024, I tried to balance the text with the book covers. This was so that there wasn’t just a wall of text, which could be unapproachable to readers.

Rhythm: I think that my website has rhythm, however this is one place to be improved upon. In order to keep the peaceful, academic aesthetic, my website can feel steady, and possibly stagnant.

Proportion: This aspect is a bit harder to control due to the template not allowing me to edit it. For example, I would have liked the featured images in each post to be smaller, however this is something that I cannot change because I do not possess the coding skills. The hierarchy of the website can feel a little bit off because the featured images and display images tend to be bigger than the text.

Contrast: I’ve typically stuck to colour contrast on my blog as it is the easiest to manipulate.

Unity: I believe that on my website, most of the principles work together. The images, colours, and typography all work alongside each other to emulate the romantic academic vibes.