I must admit whilst we build web sites and take a keen interest in the development of the internet in general my personal web use is mainly restricted to a handful of sites that I return to frequently, with a couple of specific randoms thrown in for good measure. I don't think I'm alone in this but I feel apologetic about it because I am a bit envious of the kinds of people (Geoff Creatus) who have Filkr accounts, Facebook accounts, twitter accounts, a Wordpress blog, blogger blog, logging blog, how to blog about logging blogs blog and a whole bunch of other stuff.

It's a bit of a poor excuse but I'd say that my main problem with being involved in all of these on-line arenas is that when I'm at work I'm busy working and when I'm not working I'm busy doing things for my wife - er - that is to say, enjoying my life to the full. My point here is that I'm not well versed in Bloggage or Bloggery and I'm not really sure what a successful blog looks like. I feel I need to do some research and so I thought I'd start at the top and as Google search lists the top entry (although I don't trust top entries as a rule - I'll return to this topic later) from the search term design blog as: Design Spong Online I thought I'd take a peek.

First impression is that it's been very nicely put together and features a whole LOAD of content - seemingly all broad in nature. In fact without having read anything yet is this a design blog at all? It seems to have more to do with recipes or farming or something? On the slight negative side, I really hate having to scroll down for miles and miles. I'm on a macbook pro and the infinite finger swipes are causing me no end of pre-arthritic cramping scenarios. Christ only knows what this blog would be like on an iphone, still this is a small gripe really. The big ol' pictures look great and I must make a mental note to rip-off, erm, that is to say incorporate lots of nice looking pictures on here from now on :)

Right, on to an actual post. This one is called before and after basics: masking tape designs.
It is in fact a how to guide of sorts describing how to do some REALLY NICE(?) stain effect on furniture. I must insert a caveat here stating I could not care less about natty furniture effects but I'll try to remain impartial for as long as possible. It's a functional piece of writing and I can see the appeal I suppose but it doesn't offer much in the way of reactionary comment. It makes me think though, maybe we should include some how-to entries. I guess that there might be someone out there who might benefit from an InDesign tutorial or something, plus this gives me another opportunity to figure out how Adobe Captivate works.

In the pursuit of fairness I'll take a look at another couple of entries before i damn it to hell and never return:
Number 1: in the kitchen with: big girls, small kitchen's cookies

This is another how to, in this case it's a recipe for some cookies. Very nice and again I can see the appeal but I have no idea what this has to do with design. Maybe I was wrong to have expected amusement or cynicism in this arena after all.

Number 2: biz ladies: using web analytics

This is more like what I was expecting and is a very useful intro to the key features of Google Analytics (which is a word i never fail to spell incorrectly). It's a little clinical but is actually a useful resource.

Number 3: Simply color: raina kattelson

This is almost entirely picture-led and offers an introduction to a colour scheme. This is just the kind of crap I always find in Creative Review and immediately ignore to try and find something more impressive on the latter pages.

Right, frankly I cannot be bothered to spend any longer on this site. Overall I think if this is your bag then it features useful resources and 'inspiring' pictures that is presented very well in a neat package. I'm annoyed it hasn't got more to do with design, but in truth this is probably Googles fault. Considering they'll soon be running the world I hope they manage to get a handle on misdirecting people in the future. I feel that this blog is a good example of bloggery and therefore it was a useful exercise, but it doesn't really identify the kind of blog I hope this to be.

If anyone ends up reading this and you have any recommendations of a really good blog or post for that matter, please get in touch with me via the studio address as I'd be fascinated to see what's out there beyond the confines of Google's stranglehold on what's available on the interweb.