First of all, I have to say I'm sorry to Jamie Gibbs, the author of today's blog Mithril Wisdom, because I put him off for this critique, like, a million times. Finally, I'm getting back in the routine of things. Thanks for your patience, Jamie!
So let's not keep Jamie waiting. Get over there and come on back to discuss.
Okay, disclaimer. I actually already followed Jamie's blog, but I usually read from Google Reader. That isn't usually an issue, except that I am going to talk about some things on Jamie's blog that may only be temporary for the A to Z Challenge. Just keep that in mind as we go forward.
I really like Jamie's blog. It is clean and easy to read. His header banner is tight and original. The background has a great texture. His profile is up high and easy to find. He has a contact and about me page. He has depth (more than one page). You can easily subscribe to follow him. His tag cloud is brief and precise.
Man, it looks like Jamie's a guy who follows my advice! This leaves me little to say.
Notice I said "little" to say, not "nothing" to say. I always have something to say. So, Jamie, here it is:
- I usually want to see your name in your header. It is easy to find, but I'd love your subtitle to be Jamie Gibb's Fantasy Reviews. Unless, perhaps, you are eventually moving to have more than you review? I can see that you might be setting up for that.
- While I am a big advocate of telling your readers what's going on, I'm not too fond of the paragraph at the top of the blog. I don't really have an alternative except to put it in the sidebar. At the top, it is easily seen, but it makes it cluttered. I might even prefer it if it was just one paragraph all together instead of broken up into three paragraphs. That's minor complaint. Especially since the paragraph is a temporary one.
- Here's my bigger issue, one that again may not be relevant. The colors of your blog, while belonging to a nice coordinating scheme, do not coordinate with your logo. Do you use this logo all the time or just during the A to Z Challenge? Those should be your color scheme. That tan, brown, gray and blue. Right now, everything you have in your blog that accidentally has that color blue stands out. You need to use that blue on purpose to bring out blog elements you want to highlight.
- One more thing to be aware of: I'm a middle-of-the-road fantasy fan. I like some, but I'm not an expert. So I had to Google "mithril". Does it make sense to have a definition of "mithril" somewhere on your blog? Or are we good with people maybe not knowing?
Yes, overall, Jamie's blog gets an A.The most important thing about blogging, as I always say, is how you interact with readers and other bloggers. Jamie is a very attentive blogger and comments on other blogs (well, mine anyway) very regularly. I love conversations with him and always enjoy the content on his blog - even though I'm not that good of commenting in return. For this, Jamie deserves an A++.
Do you have any tips or comments for Jamie?
