Peer Review #1 – StahmLifeAdventures

Today I’ll be reviewing the website stahmlifeadventures, which naturally belongs to my classmate, Kayla Peters. I didn’t catch the acronym at first, but I’ve found out that the “stahm” bit stands for stay at home mom, which is a nice detail!

To begin, the title font and overall theme matches the more casual and intimate style of writing that one would expect to find in a personal blog like this. I enjoy her minimalistic layout; the thin black lines break up each part and add a delicate sense of detail. Light to medium browns convey a warm and comforting colour palette, much like a cup of hot cocoa. Kayla’s writing clearly comes from an authentic and introspective place, which I appreciate.

I always enjoy a simple layout of blog posts with a small sidebar, and Kayla’s about is wonderfully succinct for this purpose. I feel as if bringing those same warm browns to the footer of her website would allow for even more harmony. Similarly, it might be worth looking into moving the vision board, logo, and memories photos to join the about in the sidebar, as they don’t quite line up with eachother nor the rest of the page. I did find the comments widget underneath her photo to be a bit confusing without a clear label, but it didn’t detract away from the rest of her page.

As an example, I’d like to focus on a process post Kayla wrote about her ideas surrounding audiences. This post offers a small glimpse into the thought process behind her choices of what to name the blog, how to approach writing, and where she plans to go from here. Despite its small size, this entry struck me as a potent reminder that each word written on our blogs is thoughtfully created by someone, who is also conscious about how it’s perceived.

Kayla has wonderful editing for the most part; the only issues I’ve spotted have been sentence splices or grammatical problems. I believe some of her longer works could also have improved readability if she separated big paragraphs more often. There are also a few process posts that are mixed up with mini assignments and other minor formatting errors, but her effort nonetheless shows through.

Family photographs laid out in neat grids and graceful typography allows Kayla to convey her own aesthetics while being relevant to her blog topic. She has a coherent design which isn’t hindered by poor navigation or broken links; overall I find her blog enjoyable to click through.

I can clearly sense Kayla’s personality and feelings throughout every entry and design decision; she has created a beautifully crafted online identity and I can’t wait to see how she continues!

☆.