Let's talk pages

CHOOSING THE PAGES 

'morangeandmore'

Pages were definitely something I wanted to incorporate in my blog design. It would not only help to navigate my blog but make it look more like a website- giving it that professional finish. This again was one of those tedious jobs where I had to use the oh so confusing blogger design settings to create pages, centre them and link them to separate pages I had to make. It is literally about as confusing as that sentence was. Anyways, once I had managed to do it, this is how the pages turned out. I used a font that matched the Post Titles on my blog so everything looked somewhat consistent. The 'HOME' page just navigates whatever post or page you are on back to the homepage- pretty handy instead of using the back space to get back to the homepage of my blog. 

So, I wanted a small amount of pages that would inform my readers of who I am but still enough to not clash with the logo and, make it all look like too much. I did a large amount of research before doing my pages because I honestly didn't know what to have and what to put on them. I researched different things including looking at very successful blogs and seeing what pages they had. Majority had these three main ones and I like that when they appear on my blog they're an even amount and look fab placed in the centre of my blog, underneath my logo. The 'CONTACT' page is about as simple as it comes in terms of content; I just provided my email which is what many other successful bloggers had done. My 'ABOUT ME' page was a large factor for me because I really wanted it to reflect the whole blog and my personality. For our profile pictures I wanted something slightly more professional on my about me page in comparison to my homepage selfie. During our chance to shoot these images I just picked up a make-up magazine and hid my face; because of course I am camera shy. My eyebrows and nails were the only parts of my appearance that were cute that day so I worked with them. I didn't want my 'ABOUT ME' page to be generic and boring; so I took the piss a little bit and showed my funny and more sassy personality in my writing. My 'DISCLAIMER' page was essential for gaining my readers trust; and it was what other successful blogs had. 

Design Time

CHOOSING THE DESIGN OF MY BLOG

'morangeandmore'

One concern that I had with the main colours of my blog being white, black and orange is that it would look halloweeny- all year round. I have always had a white background on my blogs because anything else is just too much (to me). This was probably the most challenging part of re-designing and developing my blog simply because I had to fidget with HTML's, composition and try and keep things consistent in regards to my text fonts and colours. The HTML's were an absolute nightmare, thank god for Google; that's all I have to say. I had to find HTML's to firstly centre my whole blog; because thats the sort of look I was going for. Then I had to find codes to get rid of borders off everything because I found my images looked more crisp without a border, as did my profile picture. Talking of my profile picture; I wanted to create something quirky with a selfie to introduce everyone to what I looked like. I used Photoshop to crop my image into a circle shape and added almost like a banner thing to my image to just add a little something to my minimalistic blog. I then created media buttons on the right hand side of my page, so that readers could find me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and essentially follow me on there. I opted for sparkly black themed buttons to coord with my mainly black and white design. I think they add a little sass and glamour to my blog!

So, as you can see there is quite a lot of white space what with the borders and extra shadows gone; but I honestly love how crisp and clean cut every looks. I added a Instagram Slideshow widget on the right hand side bar which flicks through a mixture of my personal life and make-up pictures- adds a more personal touch. I then added a Blog Archive so that my blog is made easier to navigate for readers and just because I really want to get followers and make a profession of writing, I added the followers widget that shows who is following and also gives people visiting my blog the chance to follow my website. I think I chose to keep things very simple and minimalistic on the design aspect of my blog because I am a very visual person; so I want things like my photography, make-up, text and widgets to stand out themselves without having to fight to be seen over a background and busy page. Overall I am very pleased with the outcome of my design, it may not look very hard to do but trust me, it was. A lot of effort went into even the smallest things and it all paid off. 

It's not you, it's your logo

CHOOSING THE LOGO 

'morangeandmore'

Designing my logo was pretty important when it came to the overall design aspect of my blog. It would determine my image and how I wanted my blog to be portrayed. There were two things that I knew from the get go, I wanted to incorporate in my logo. The colour orange and a very simple text. In our first design lesson I got to grips with 'In Design' and like everyone else, fiddled with lines, templates and fonts until some ideas started to stem. I decided on a very basic condensed font that would show that minimalistic quality I wanted but still made the title stand out. I came up with the very unoriginal idea of using lips but in a different way. I wish I would have saved the tester logos from that lesson to show how I've progressed but I don't think many of us were fully aware of what the brief required- until now of course. I put together orange lips with morangeandmore embossed around and in the shape of the lips, I used different tools on In Design to morph and play around with the letters of my chosen title and still nothing. The next lesson I came in feeling slightly more creative and decided that I wasn't going to make things too complicated for myself and definitely wanted to take a more minimalistic and fashionable approach. That's when I came up with this:

It took time, and a lot of tedious hours of technical stuff like measuring the width of my blog to the logo, and choosing the perfect colour on photoshop to imitate morange the lipstick- but I got through it. I decided to stick to that simple condensed font and actually increased the space in between letters to make it look really tabloid/ magazine title like. I decided to spunk things up a bit and went for a very simply orange lip to replace the 'O' of my title; this meant that it would not only represent the reoccurring theme of my blog but is significant because my title is based on a lipstick that is in fact orange. The black background really came in by accident; when on Photoshop playing around with the widths my whole logo highlighted itself and I thought, why not add a background? Backgrounds for me are difficult thing, simply because they can often be tacky and remind me of Piczo back in the day. I thought the black against the white and orange worked really well though; it personally adds a more run-way fashion type vibe to my blog and is very magazine like. It's modern and simplistic- a bit like my style and that's essentially what I am writing about. Even though my blog isn't fashion revolved with style Q&A's and OOTD galore; fashion and make-up still are linked together very closely. I started with the black background going the whole width of my blog but after centring the whole of my blog I actually decided to crop the sides down slightly and just have it the width of my content. Overall I am very pleased with my logo and as you will see in upcoming posts, it really starts to come together with the rest of my blog. 

In the very beginning...

CHOOSING THE NAME

'morangeandmore'

My beauty blog for a good 3 years was under the title 'loudbeauty'- generic to say the least, I know. With the occasional post about my work, camera phone pictures and informative writing I was getting views but nothing solid enough to keep me motivated. Writing on and off for those three years eventually led to me just stopping. Before going to University I decided to re-launch my blog with an entirely different name and image. I was from then going to post on a daily basis and really advertise myself in what we know as social media platforms. At this point in my life I was definitely more quirky, had found myself, my style etc a bit more and above all really wanted to write about beauty, skincare, fashion and my life. It was the year I became addicted to the colour 'Morange' by MAC that led to the catchy title I have still kept the same today. Lipstick really is important isn't it? Anyways, I am rambling. Once at Uni I still didn't have enough motivation to really make something of my blog until now. My main calling is of course make-up, but even more so is writing.

From the get go of our first Beauty Editorial class with Elizabeth I felt motivated- almost bursting with ideas that would get my work and blog finally noticed. It felt different this time, like the feedback and guidance were actually going to pay off. When I first started my blog I was trying to be something I wasn't- loud. Which is only me after a rum and coke. This time around I felt a more minimalistic approach would cater to not only those who love beauty AND fashion but those ranging from teens to even adults in the industry. To say the least, it is definitely more me. The first week we were asked to come up with a name for our new blog. By already having a blog I had history with put me at an advantage and disadvantage. Do I carry on with the same blog? Or do I start fresh and re-do all my hard work because something wasn't working. My personality obviously isn't as spunky as my teen self because the list of blog names I brainstormed were beyond hideous. I mean 'Makeup Mistress'? wow. I um'd and ar'd for what seemed like weeks until I finally decided to keep the quirky and relevant name I came up with two years prior to that class, and I am very happy I did.

Using the word 'Morange' in my title was definitely risky and could be seen to limit my audience, but at the end of the day whether you are a beauty fanatic, make-up artist, fashion lover or stylist to even a teen or adult who enjoys reading beauty blogs- morange and more is catchy. I liked that it not only had this effect but also set a theme and colour for my blog; orange. By adding 'and more' to my title, I not only am making it catchy, but it adds a very mysterious factor to my whole blog. When someone who isn't up to date with beauty and fashion looks at the title they'll think 'what's morange? and more, what could more be?'- well that's what I'm hoping anyways. It also gives me a lot of freedom in what I choose to write about. Having a name with beauty or make-up in it not only suggests and revolves your whole idea about just those things but means that anything that isn't beauty or make-up related will just look out of place. So by saying 'and more' I can be free to write about fashion, lifestyle posts, food and even feminism if I fancied it.  Phonetically the MOR of both morange and more in the title create an effective alliteration, and therefore make the overall blog catchy and fabulous.