Looking at Universities - 1

The University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is a University that I have been considering for time and is one that seems to be a nearly sure choice. As well as being a top red brick university, Leeds is 11th on the leader board of top universities on The Guardian website for Art and Design. It's history spans over 100's of years.
Being a major city in the UK, Leeds is a very well populated area and is popular for the music scene holding some of the world's best venues and festivals. This is something I find as a bonus to the social aspect of the city and it will be something to look forward to when moving away from the hometown.

5th Blog Review

'Mike Luce Illustration' is basically illustration work from Mike Luce. Illustration is another choice that I would like to follow as the work produced intrigues me because it is often more than just a picture of something, it is more about the intention behind the art. A meaning shown can be interpreted in many various ways and can be beautiful in one's eyes and atrocious in another's. The blog is just a display of his artwork and influential images are not shown to demonstrate where his ideas are coming from.

The design in my opinion is really bland and does not really instantly connect to illustration as a layout. Perhaps it was deliberate in order to make the illustrations stand out but it really doesn't appeal to me. The layout is really standard and pretty much aside an original template. Many shades of green and a little bit of black is used thoroughly on the blog and each different colour of green is to distinguish different kinds of text. Everything on the page seems to be floating like the information isn't fixed on the page. 

Two different fonts are used, one being serif and the other being sans serif. The serif font is used on the actual writing that is important and should be read, where as the sans serif font is used for the less important information and gives less of an urgent feel to read. The style of writing is rather informal and it is shared as something more basic.

4th Blog Review

Sparth is about concept design and visual development and this is something that I am interested in because it is something that I would like to have a career in following these kind of designs. The blogging style is very professional and insightful, but the posts aren't very regular. On average there is a post once a month.

A simplistic design of dark moody colours and basic forms of shapes are used to create the page and its form to offer a page of standard monthly posts. All the text and images are located on a central column of a paler colour to highlight the work and so it is easily established from the background and the black coloured font. The middle section makes the blog seem more together as a whole and seem more content in the way that the posts are more informative in a clearer structure of the information. The personalised logo blends in with the design and matches the theme of colours. It also signifies the type of genre the blog is and a sapmle of what can be expected.

Sophisticated language is used in his explanatory writing style accompanied by the images. Only a small amount of colloquial language is used, but when it is, it is used in a sensible way. Technical words are included in the writing but can be easily found out through the use of similar software he refers to. 

3rd Blog Review

'Knuckle Deep' is an art blog based on games and his own art work by posting all sorts of art pieces. This is what I think that I will follow as a career in the same subject. The blog posts are rather restricted in the topics that are more surreal and fantasy illustrations, game releases and photos. The majority of the posts are all of value to the blogger for inspiration and self purpose to show his own work.

The design of the blog follows a theme. The colours orange, and (various tones of) grey are used throughout the blog making the blog seem simple but thought about. Although the layout of the posts are centred, unlike 'an Architecture' the text has been displayed on the right hand side of the images perhaps making the images seem more important as they are the first thing to stand out due to the colours, and the general way of reading from left to right. The type / fonts used, apart from the blog title, makes the entirety of the blog seem serious. The style of the header induces a sense of informal feel to the genre of the blog. All the different headers and text can be easily distinguished.

The blogger uses their own opinions and style of personal writing to comment on partial posts that he seems to take a real interest to. Nearly all of his comments are postive and some what inspirational to himself as he it is read like they're discovering what they feels as they write. The images used to post are ones that are all very linked together in the way that they carry the same theme of fiction excluding the taken photo posts. Their own personal work is often blogged and although there are no development shots of the the progression, links can be found along with the work to show how it is done and where it may be featured.

2nd Blog Review

I've chosen to follow 'an Architecture' because it's based around an architectural subject and is very open with blog posts by posting not just about buildings, all the things that should be contemplated with architectural structures such as materials, inspiration and processes. Architecture is something that I like to follow because it is forever evolving in many various ways and can either be aesthetically pleasing or absolutely horrendous. 

The design of the blog is very friendly as the subtle colours have been used for the text on the page. The title is clearly distinguished using an interesting take on normal type with the angle of the letters and the one capital letter. The post headings can be read easily and can be easily told apart from the normal text. The layout of the page is standard with it all being centrally aligned and looks rather ordinary but there's also a sense of importance and sophistication as well. The colours used aren't really specific to the theme of subject but works quite well, perhaps as it is rather contradictory.

The style of writing is rather specific to the to Architecture with the language refering to architects reading the blog. The writing restricts the audience to a specific type of group of people that are technical limiting the blog to people who know the specific subject quite well. The posted images are very relevant to the topic and gives a selection of more than one view of the chosen post to view.