Despite all of the hype with blogs in recent years, a blog is just a means for publishing work on the web in an easy to read and update format. Some blogs are very personal, resemembling a diary, while others seem more akin to newspaper or magazine, design styles vary. For our class this term, you will keep a blog to post your graphic work and writing examples, work must be posted to be eligible for grading. You are encouraged to customize your blog and use it as a platform to display your design skill progression and evolution of personal style.
Your Assignment:
- Create a personal blog using blogger.com
- Customize the appearance of your blog to make it your own
- Post the results of your first projects: Icon Art, Box to Car, Place and Trace
- Email the URL of your blog to your instructor so it can be included in the new link list
- Can you use other platforms? Maybe. Wordpress is powerful and looks great but can be a bit difficult for the new user. Tumblr and weebly work but sometimes are blocked by school networks. Blogger is straightforward and easy to use but do what works for you best.
A Rough Guide to Setting Up a Blogger Blog:
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This is a snapshot of one of my class blogs, I started with a basic template and customized the colors and banner art to suit my style. I have 5 different blogs for the classes I teach and one to show my professional work... a little customization will go along way in making your blog standout.
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The setup is easy, read each screen and explore the options. The guide below is a rough outline to setup of your blog, it may not be 100% accurate.
- Blogger now is part of Google, so if you have a Google account (which allows for things like gmail) you should use that to set up your new blogger account. If you don't have a Google account, now is a pretty good chance to set one up. Otherwise, it is just a matter of following the instructions on this page. Sign In or Sign Up and create your blog
- Be sure to check the "terms of service" box; of course, you might actually want to read through it a bit first, though the rules are pretty standard for these sorts of services.
- Save your username and password some place. In fact, I would encourage you to write it down some place. Don't lose this!
- The "Blog Title" will be what appears in the title portion of your blog site itself.
- For the address of your blog don't have any spaces, it can be different than your "Blog Title".
- The "word verification" section is a security set-up the blogger folks have; simply type in the word you see in the funky font into the provided box. Click "continue" when you're done.
- You can choose any template you want for your blog, and you can also change the template later if you would like. Click continue when you're done.
- After waiting a few moments, you should get a screen that says your blog has been created. Good for you! Click on the "start posting" arrow and get to work!
Step 2: Get posting!
- The posting screen for blogger is pretty straight-forward. Give your entries a title, type in the appropriate window, and use the editing tools for your blog entry as you want. We'll talk about more advanced options for your posting later, but if you know any basic html, you can incorporate most of that code into your blog posts.
- To post or "publish" your post, click the button at the bottom of the screen "Publish Post." If you start writing something but you don't want to post it until later, click where it says "Save as Draft."
- When you publish your post, blogger will process the information and then, if everything worked (and it usually does), it will give you the option to "view blog." Take a look at it; you should notice a couple of things:
- The address for your blog-- something like http://stevendkrause.blogspot.com-- is the address for your blog. Send this URI (web address) to me! I will link to your blog from the class web site.
- Readers should be able to post a comment to your post by clicking on the "comments" link.
Step 3: Do some adjustments to your account
There are a number of different things you might want to do to make your blog a bit more useful. But here are a couple of things you really should do no matter what.
Blocking blog spam. I know, hard to believe, but yes, the world of spamming extends to blogs too. Fortunately, Blogger has a pretty decent security feature that will eliminate almost all spam posts from your blog. Here's what to do:
- If you aren't already logged in, log in to your Blogger account. You did remember your username and password, right?
- From the "Dashboard" screen, click on the name of your blog.
- Click on the tab "Settings."
- Click on the link near the top of that page under the tabs labeled "Comments."
- Set "Who Can Comment?" to "Only Registered Users." It isn't essential that you do this, but I'd recommend it.
- A bit further down, set "Show word verification for comments?" to "Yes." This is a security feature that requires the comment poster to type a specific word that shows up as slightly distorted text in a window.
- Select "Save Settings" at the bottom of the page.
Time zone. It'd be nice if the time was right on your blog, right? Here's how to do that:
- If you aren't already logged in, log in to your Blogger account. You did remember your username and password, right?
- From the "Dashboard" screen, click on the name of your blog.
- Click on the tab "Settings."
- Click on the link near the top of that page under the tabs labeled "Formatting."
- Under "Time Zone," select the right time zone (and if you're reading this as part of one of my classes, that'd be "Detroit." Duh.)
- Select "Save Settings" at the bottom of the page.
Doing things to customize your blogger blog. There's lots of stuff you can do customize your blog. At a minimum, I'd recommend including some links to your classmates' blogs or other blogs you like to read, but there are a lot of other things you can do, too-- include pictures, lists of stuff you like, etc., etc.
- If you aren't already logged in, log in to your Blogger account. You did remember your username and password, right?
- From the "Dashboard" screen, click on the name of your blog.
- Click on the tab "Template."
- Make sure the "Page Elements" tab under this is selected, and click on "Add a Page Element." From here, simply follow the instructions. Be sure to save you page element additions and double-check that it worked.
Trouble-shooting:
"Hey, what should I do if it didn't work?!" Well, blogger really is pretty easy to use, try asking the person to your left or right and I bet you can figure out the issue. It's important to collaborate and share information.
Have fun!
- Mr.W
