#4 – Audience

What audience have you been imagining so far?

Because I haven’t talked about this blog to anyone but a few friends, those are the only people I expect to be reading my blog, aside from members of PUB101. With my friends, I have a sense of what their humour is like, and know that I am able to go on a tangent with them (and what kind of topics I could tangent about). A positive of this is that this has granted me an easy time in writing and choosing topics as I feel a sense of security. However, I don’t think I’ve been able to make it easy for audience to access and grasp my sense of self – because my friends already know me pretty well, I feel a want to prioritize aspects of my website that push more of my interests rather than strictly showcasing my opinions, my feelings, and my sense of self. Although I do believe interests are part of showcasing the self to the public, it’s only a small part of it that could be expanded upon.

editorial decisions

In terms of website design, I have been relatively experimental with my typographic and layout choices as a lot of my close friends are also designers, or at least familiar with design. This decision almost feels like a risk as it requires discipline to balance the line between accessible and experimental, and while it seems to have been accepted so far, I might dial back the tightness of the letter spacing in the future. Again, because I have been assuming a shared understanding of design between myself and my audience, I feel a sense of security that allows me to explore these types of choices.

My copy and style of writing feels slightly formal. I am having a difficult time with breaking out of the idea that I am writing for academic purposes.
I took a 6-credit design course last semester in an environment where it was the status quo for students to be eating, breathing, and living the concepts taught in the classroom. I was not an exception. An overarching value in that class was to not speak in a colloquial manner, as students were expected to act as industry professionals, where professionals should treat other professionals with respect. Although that course is not the only determining factor in my writing and editing choices, I feel like it plays a great part as I feel as though am still stuck in that class, waiting for my content to be critiqued by that specific professor and his teaching assistant.