Overview
joiemarin.com is a space where Joie blogs her thoughts about the books she has read. So far, her content specifically includes reviews and recommendations.
Visual identity
Even before beginning to parse through the content, the theme of Joie’s blog is communicated very clearly through a cohesive visual aesthetic. What stands out to me is her choice to not only make the landing image a photo of a library, but making the majority of her posts feature images of environments with books in them. This quickly sets up the visitor with the correct impression that this blog is going to be about books and reading, which I think is a smart choice.
Typography and colour palette choices are other strong aspects of this blog. Source Serif reminds the audience of a classical book, and a warm-toned background softens the contrast between text and images, making Joie’s blog a comfortable, relaxed space. Additionally, the site logo, a cute little teddy bear with a pink bow (that Joie told me she hand-drew on MS paint), adds a friendly touch to the overall refined look of the website. During tutorial, Joie told me that she was inspired by romantic academia aesthetics, which I think is reflected well through such choices.
Content
Although I stated in the overview that Joie’s blog is about reading books, her ‘about’ page makes it clear what kind of content to expect in the future: beyond the reviews and recommendations that she currently has, she is thinking about blogging other related content, such as future releases and location recommendations.
As demonstrated in her ‘about’ page, Joie’s voice is consistently clear to audience. While providing a sufficient amount of context to the readers, her posts thus far include a lot of personal observations, experiences and opinions that are related to the topic of her posts.
As a blogger, it is clear that Joie is conscious of an audience, and makes considerate choices in her content that reflect an inviting online personality. I am particularly a fan of the way she formatted her trigger warning on her review of for The World is Your Beautiful Younger Sister to stand out from the rest of the text. While it may be a small detail, it helps the audience acknowledge where Joie’s values as a blogger exist. Joie has also made formatting choices in other posts that successfully guide the audience through a seamless reading experience: from separating the synopsis and review in The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels to allow the audience to easily distinguish fact from opinion, to the two-column layout in My Anticipated 2024 Releases, it is clear that her online self is one that is mindful of how her choices can create a positive reading experience.
OVerall experience
Going through Joie’s blog, the impression that I get is that while joiemarin.com is a space for Joie to reflect on her own reading experiences, she wants to invite visitors to enjoy the website as much as she does; this is demonstrated through the crafting of a strong visual presence, a casual and friendly tone in her writing, and other content choices that made it easy for me to understand the blog. Overall, I think Joie’s online self is cool 🙂