ABEA: Blog Aesthetics

 

I haven’t really thought about branding as much in the years since I started blogging.  Back then, it was my own personal spot on the internet to share my thoughts and (gasp!) journal.

Through the years, my style has evolved and the overall feel of my blog has mostly remained the same.  I have mostly used the same theme and colors and overall look of this blog in the last four years.

Let’s take a look at the evolution of I Heart Romance & YA.  I have been pretty much consistent with my colors with various changes on my blog headers only.

First blog header circa 2012-2013
UGH!  This was my very first blog header!  This was the time I thought BIGGER was CUTER!  I honestly don’t know what I was thinking when I created this header, but it made the cut!  This was my header for about a year when I finally updated it after my move to WordPress.

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Blog header from 2013-2014
This header has a whimsical feel to it and this header shows my original blog name.

Blog header from 2014-2015
Because I started reviewing YA titles, I decided to add YA to my blog name.  I debated on changing the whole blog name and start from scratch, but decided to add “& YA” since I already had the domain and I didn’t fancy purchasing another one.  I still used the same font and style of the previous header.

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Blog header in 2015
In 2015, I decided to go minimal.  I changed my header and made it cleaner, using a different color for the word “heart.”  At this point, I felt that my whole theme was coming together rather nicely.  I felt that I had achieved the brand that I was going for.

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Blog header from late 2015 – early 2016
I decided to add my tagline to the header itself, then changed the look a little bit but adding a pink crooked heart on top.  Again, everything remained the same and it is still a clean header.

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Blog header from 2016 – present
FINALLY, my current header (about a couple weeks old yay!) looks clean BUT with a wacky font for the word “heart.”  I also removed the heart image and kept it simple.  I figured that the wackiness of the word “heart” would overwhelm the whole header if the heart remained.

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One other thing that I feel I am distinct from other bloggers is the newest type of review that I recently adopted in late 2015.  I also added a skinny review section for those who don’t like to read long reviews (or my wacky review style).  This is how my skinny review looks like:

What do you think of the evolution of my blog headers?  Which header do you think is the best one of the bunch? I welcome your thoughts below!

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