Have you ever given thought about all the colors of your blog? You’ve probably given thought to the colors of your blog as you look at it but that’s not the only color on your blog.
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For instance, your font color is something to consider. Have you ever noticed that the font on this blog isn’t really black? It’s kind of a charcoal grey color; close but not quite black. The blog of one of my clients has gold print. There’s nothing wrong with changing certain things like that up as long as it’s still readable against its background.
What about language? Have you ever heard the name William F Buckley Jr? He was acknowledged as one of the smartest men ever, had a TV show that lasted 33 years, wrote a weekly newspaper column and multiple books. In one of them, which I can’t recall at the moment, on the same page he used the words proboscis, stentorian, and miasma of perfidy. There were words like that on every page as a matter of fact, and I only made it through 20 pages before I got tired of pulling out the dictionary so often. I have a pretty good vocabulary, but I try to temper myself, and instead look for synonyms that people know every once in awhile so I don’t sound the same over and over.
All of these things help to give your blog a fresh feel and helps to show what you’re made of. Sure, you want people to learn your style and get comfortable with it. But every once in awhile you need to be fresh, update things a bit, and try not to be so predictable.
In that vein we have the video below which talks about colors and blogging; yeah, I know, you’re not going to watch it, but I’m putting it out here anyway:
http://youtu.be/dr80OLxWQHg
I remember you on Hot Blog Tips talking about how your supposed to write at a 3rd grade level. There’s no way in the world I’d ever do that! But when they are using a thesaurus program something like Wordweb. I think they pick those word’s no one knows and try to sound smart in the scheme on things. Wordweb is a great tool to stop yourself from repeating one to many words on a particular subject. If you don’t use this program Mitch I say check it out, you’ll love it! It helps, so much. As for coloring your blog and making it speak you. A tip I picked up is remember some people are colorblind so you have to kind of work your way around that also. – Scott Craighead
Scott, I dabble in the sesquipedalian on my own terms so I don’t believe I need a thesaurus to help me out. Color blindness is a big deal, though one hopes we don’t have a lot of people loving the mixture of red and green too much on either their blogs or websites, and I’ll also hope there’s not too much pink either; ugh! lol
haha, I hear you on the pink! I am color blind to dark green myself, to me it’s black. Even light green I failed on when I gave myself a color blind test online. Thanks for the reply Mitch and keep up the good work. – Scott Craighead
Thanks for that Scott, I just installed Wordweb on my computer and my Android. Unlike Mitch, I need all the help I can get. 😉
It’s the perfect application for pretty much anything. Understanding new words and find the right word to describe what your trying to get across. Great tool for screenwriting. Hope you enjoy it. And you do fine with your words, do let it be your falsehood, stick with being you. – Scott Craighead
I Googled him, Mr. William F Buckley Jr.. I thought he’s somewhat connected to Jeff Buckley. And I do agree that consistency of your writing style is important, but how are you going not to be predictable?
PS. how did you know I’m not going to watch the video? 😛
Rachel, I have my moments of clairvoyance. lol As to the other, by changing up here and there that makes you unpredictable, hopefully keeping you and your blog interesting.
I don’t know that writing fancy will do a favor for your “not that smart” audience. I understand the need to write “outside the box” but sometime keeping a normal level of writing will be more than enough. Keep in mind that writing at a high level will make the lecture much harder and it will lose the reader’s attention.
Radu, take a look at your comment. You wrote “sometimes keeping…” In other words, you’ve made allowance that one can deviate from the norm and write something at a higher level of education “sometimes”; that’s all I’m saying. So, indirectly you agreed with me, if we trust what you wrote. lol
At 5:53 of this video, a tiny picture of you appears in the upper right hand corner of the frame. Was that a test?
Charles, how funny is that? Nope, I didn’t do it; I wouldn’t know how to do it. But that’s the picture I use for my YouTube account so maybe they’re doing it. Wild!
Hey Mitch!
It seems that you are using the InVideo programming after all. And see – someone noticed!
That is really funny since we just had the conversation this morning. Well at least now you know how to change it if you want. 🙂
I am? Ileane, if I’m using it then I don’t know I am, unless you’re talking about adding videos to some of my blog posts. Gotta work on promoting videos here and there right? One of these days one will even go viral if I stop being boring. lol
Well, I watched – twice. I am familiar with William Buckley; I actually read one of his books after I left the Army. It was called High Jinks, I think. I remember very little about the book but don’t really recall having a tough time reading it.
It can be tough to “be colorful” for certain topics. One of those topics, unfortunately, is blogging tips. I just try to let my personality come through. Well, that’s not entirely true. I can’t help but let it come though, truth be told. Stories, like the example you gave in your video, can help a lot.
Today I wrote about backing our blogs up. There can’t be too many topics more boring than that. lol But it needs to be talked about so I try to let my own story of “misery” guide the discussion. I have never considered myself a great writer, I just like to write.
Just like I love to take photos, mostly with my cell phone, but I’m a far cry from a professional photographer. In both cases, there are still people that enjoy what I post, on the blog or Instagram. I guess what I’m saying, my idea of being colorful is just being ourselves. I might think differently if a large book advance was in the works but, for blogging, I just want to be me. Seriously, who wouldn’t? lol
Brian, the book you read was fiction; the one I was reading was one on political policy. He was showing off, kind of like Howard Cosell used to do.
Actually, I think even with a topic like blogging one can be colorful. I’m not saying you need to pull out tri-pedal words, but you know how some people write something and there’s those couple of words they’ll use over and over? Sometimes we can fall into a pattern where we don’t challenge ourselves to find a different way to say something, and it can make us boring. All I say is to every once in awhile use a word like “fabulous” or “honorific” instead of “good”. 🙂
I’ve never tinkered with the color of the font. However if I knew how to change the font, I might. Not sure.
I’m what they call a logophile. A lover of words. Depending on how much time I have, I like to put feelings and expressions into the written prose.
Steve, I think you’d be dangerous if you knew how to code. lol Actually, when I first learned how to do it I was really dangerous to myself. I had every page on my website coming up a different color, thinking of it like I did my house. I learned from reading more that wasn’t a very smart thing to do online. Yet, the font color on my site is actually dark blue and not black; I hate being predictable.
I love words also but I realize if I did the Buckley route no one would ever read it; who wants to work that hard all the time? I hope that, for the most part, when I write here I’m telling little stories that people will be interested in. I know I don’t always succeed but at least those who know me know my style when they see it.