CHERTRAVELS
Taking on the world with a camera and a leap of faith
EXEGESIS
CherTravels is a travel blog dedicated to document all sorts of adventures, food recommendations and destinations to visit in the entire world. In order to differentiate myself from the increasing number of travel blogs on the World Wide Web, the name 'CherTravels' was created. It is essentially a fusion of a part of my name, Cheryl, together with the main genre of the site, travel.
Wix.com
As compared to popular sites such as Wordpress and Blogger, an unconventional choice amongst emerging bloggers is wix.com. I had found the entire experience of blogging to be taken up a whole notch with extremely flexible use of customisation functions, while still being able to retain the authentic core of this form of documentation.
One huge differentiating factor that greatly impressed me was how I was able to animate the main header portion of the site automatically upon its launch. Very few competitors to wix.com are able to offer such personal customisations to their users.
I started designing CherTravels with the help from Wix’s newest smart assistant function, ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence). According to Wong, one is able to have almost the entire website be built automatically on a selected design template through ADI. (2017) This travel blog was first started and designed fully with ADI. Limitations, however, was found with extensive use of this Artificial Intelligence and I promptly switched over to Wix’s regular editing interface and could resume full customisation of the site. With ADI, I found that I was not able to individually change font types and placements of certain elements, let alone tweak minor details such as font sizes and spacing widths within a page.
Font
A fairly simple sans serif font type was standardized throughout the site. Fonts are almost always compatible when family fonts are used togther. In this instance, the choice was made to use Avenir and Avenir Light. Titles can be differentiated with Avenir in Bold, and main text body in Avenir Light. Subtext can also easily be set apart from the main text body with the addition of italics, on top of Avenir Light.
While commonly found pre-installed in Macs, this font is undoubtedly one of the few ‘top fonts’ among designers. (Shoaf 2016) This font family was chosen for its harmony of geometry between letters accompanied with a curved bevel silhouette, giving this font a warm and friendly touch. It is, ultimately, one of the best choices for both headers and text bodies on a digital platform. (Shoaf, 2014)
Logo
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This current logo you see when you first enter the website is actually the second iteration of the brand logo. The first logo that was designed looked like this (above, left), and it did not have the capacity to completely showcase the kind of blog CherTravels is. Taking inspiration to a similar blog, jemmawei.com, I adopted the form behind her logo and transformed it with a twist in shape, colour and font choice to create my own logo (above, right).
Colour
It is consistent throughout the blog that the general theme is geared towards having a minimalistic touch in order to reduce any strong clashes with the vast amount of pictures within the site. I chose a muted mint green to give this minimalistic design a pop of colour. The world is notably identified with the colours blue and green, therefore it was only apt to adapt one of the two colours in a travel blog.
Layout
Inspired by a related travel blogger's site, bellywellyjelly.com, CherTravels boasts a landscape welcome image on the main page of the blog. While Bellywellyjelly’s interface is relatively more interactive with a gallery of 4 sliding images and ‘read more’ buttons each, CherTravels took on a similar concept with only one image accompanied with an ‘explore’ button. Instead of combining everything like how Christabel did on her blog, I placed the gallery right below the welcome image.
Split into 4 distinct sections, one can easily navigate through the site via the header.
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Tagline
The foundation of being able to document while travelling is entirely built on what one sees, hears, experiences, captures and remembers at that point of time. The tagline, ‘Taking on the world with a camera and a leap of faith’ directly translates what the entire site stands for and the establishment for further growth. It basically means having a trusty camera to capture every moment one might find themselves in, and a leap of faith to live and explore on the road. Many travellers choose the safest and most lavish options when travelling, but I strongly believe that one needs to take the courage to go out of their comfort zones when out in the world.
Millennials have become increasingly reliant on social media, and users often utilize this site to gain instant communication and connections with their friends. Facebook is able to provide one with an online social space to build and maintain connections with others, and curate creative content in their own personal space online. (Cheung et. al 2010)
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I chose to employ Facebook as one of my contributing nodes in the context of having a form of web presence on one of the most popular social networking sites in the world. It is also particularly effective in connecting with my target audience, mostly young adults interested in travel. Also one of the sites online built for peer to peer content sharing, consumers are able to repost content, 'like' postings and leave comments, and serves as an optimal platform for sharing of viral content. (Petrick 2016)
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Flickr and YouTube
While Flickr is one of the top few gateways to online image sharing, YouTube has also made its mark on the internet in video sharing.
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Commonly described as a photosharing system between users, Flickr is also known for “social networking, blogging, photo organization and group scrapbooking.” (Cox 2008) While social networking sites such as Instagram and Blogger have emerged to meet greater needs in certain areas in recent years, Flickr still stands strong in its niche in providing both amateur and professionals a platform to display their photography work.
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Operating on a similar concept as Flickr, video sharing site YouTube is an optimal social networking site seeking to provide budding film makers and travellers a place to allow their creativity come to life.
As a travel blogger and photographer, it is very important to be able to host large batches of images and quality videos on a reliable host platforms I can trust to remain active in the years to come.
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References
Cheung, Christy M.K., Chiu, Pui-Yee, Lee, and Matthew K.O. 2010. Online social networks: Why do students use facebook? . Elsevier Ltd.
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Cox, Andrew M. 2008. Flickr: a case study of Web2.0. Aslib Proceedings.
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Petrick, Kristina. 2016. Most Effective Social Media Platforms For Viral Marketing – Aumcore Blog | Latest Tech News, Insights & Creative Strategy. Aumcore.Com.
http://www.aumcore.com/blog/2016/06/29/most-effective-social-media-platforms-for-viral-marketing/#.
Shoaf, Jeremiah. 2016. The 10 Most Popular Web Fonts Of 2015 (And Fonts You Should Consider Using Instead. Typewolf. Typewolf.
https://www.typewolf.com/blog/most-popular-fonts-of-the-year.
Shoaf, Jeremiah. 2014. The Good, The Bad And The Great Examples Of Web Typography – Smashing Magazine. Smashing Magazine.
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/12/the-good-the-bad-and-the-great-examples-of-web-typography/.
Wong, Jeremy. 2017. 13 Key Things To Know Before You Use Wix.Com | Wix Review 2017. Best Website Builder Reviews For 2017.
