I didn't want to stop at just a banner and theme in terms of personalisation of my blog and decided to add a few things. 

Favicon Icon

Icon (Image by Amadee Stenzel)

My favicon icon is designed to replace the standard Blogger one which appears on the tab. By having a customised favicon icon, it distinguishes my blog from other tabs a reader might have open. 

To create the image I used Adobe Photoshop and overlaid text onto a background the same colour as my blog theme. It was a simple process but I believe this small change will benefit the feel of my blog. I feel that the customised icon on an open tab looks more professional. 

Icon viewable on tab (Image by Amadee Stenzel)

Gadgets 

Gadgets are useful when wanting to add additional features to your blog to enhance user experience. The first gadget I've used is 'Popular Posts'. 

Popular Posts (Image by Amadee Stenzel)

This gadget is has proved to be useful on my other blog in terms of linking readers to older posts which have been popular. With this addition to my blog, my audience can have their interest peaked and click through to an article which may have been posted months prior. 

Another way I personalised my blog was through using social media links. I taught myself how to add buttons to the side panel of a blog on my other blog and it's proven to be the easiest way to get people to find my social media accounts. 

Social media links (Image by Amadee Stenzel)

To create the buttons, I took already made icons from a blogger called Carrie Loves Design who offers a variety of colours and information on how to create the links. I chose the colour shadow  #656565 because it was neutral and looked similar to the dark grey in my chosen colour palette. 

To create the links themselves I uploaded the icon photos to Photobucket and pasted the html link into a new gadget. However, this just links the photo to the side bar. To make clicking on the icon redirect to my social media, I posted the link to each page with the html photo link in a new gadget. It was complicated at first but now I understand the process and it's definitely an interesting feature to my blog. 

Colour palette

I chose cool-toned colours to keep the colour palette calm and soothing. The basis was the grey background as I believed warm-toned colours would clash too much. The colour scheme I decided on for my blog revolved around the idea of calm soothing tones to compliment the lifestyle oriented content. 

I decided to do my colour palette after my banner because I wanted to use tones from the image as a guide to the overall colour scheme of my blog. To do this, I took a screen shot of my blog and used the Adobe Kuler program to select the colours I'd used.

Screen shot from Adobe Kuler (Image by Amadee Stenzel)

Each colour can be found somewhere on my blog, mostly in the banner and I liked the idea of using images to set a colour scheme. The colours I've chosen are the following four. 

RGB: 204 199 209 HEX: CCC7D1

RGB: 97 144 142 HEX: 61728E

RGB: 177 175 196 HEX: B1AFC4

RGB: 59 59 59 HEX: 3B3B3B

The meaning behind my chosen colours is to keep with the calm and simple plain. My ideal blog design would utilise these colours in more places than just the banner. I'd use the purple and blue shades to accent my blog posts and the dark grey as a font colour. 

It was suggested to pick only three colours, however I feel like these colours rely on the other to keep them from looking too grey-toned. For example, without the first shade of light grey, the blue and purple don't appear to have the same delicate undertones. Whereas the combination of the first three distinguish them as completely different colours when compared side-by-side. 

The last shade and darkest colour is essential as I would use it as an anchor to prevent the text from blending into the page. The grey colour of the body text isn't dark enough to properly distinguish itself from the background and proves to put a slight strain on the eyes. The darker grey-black shade would be much easier to read without eliminating the simple and calming effect of the other colours. 

It's banner time

The banner is one of the most important visual aspects of any blog. It's the first thing people see when they open the page and can give readers the initial impression of what kind of person the blog belongs to. My personal style is very simple and minimalistic so I decided to reflect that with my banner. 

I decided to use an image as my banner background because I felt it worked in unison with the images I've used in my posts. I felt that if I had used a pattern or simple text that it wouldn't stand out on the page and catch attention as much as a photo would. 

For the photo, I tried to reflect my intended content on the blog. However, because I aspire to work for a lifestyle publication there were many different avenues I could have represented. So to keep it neutral, I featured a book and pen to represent the written content of the blog and a necklace in the background to hint at my intended audience being women. 

How did I make the banner?
To make the banner I took some photos on a table using items I thought would make the photo more visually interesting. In this case it was a journal with a textured cover, a pen, a necklace with a chain and a tiled table top. Each of these aspects contributed to the overall image and 

Original photo (Image by Amadee Stenzel)

To make my banner from the photo I created a new document in Photoshop and scaled it to fit the banner space. I used this as a guide and placed the photo over this template to size and adjust the photo the way I thought looked best. Next I adjusted the levels of the photo so that they would be more cool-toned and vibrant. Finally, I added the title of my blog, 'Amadee May' over the top in Georgia font to match the rest of the page. 

First edit (Image by Amadee Stenzel)

However, although I loved the vibrant purple hues of the image after I'd adjusted the levels, it just didn't suit the rest of my blog. It was too intense a colour to work in unison with my grey background. 

To combat this issue I decided to adjust the vivid colour of the image by adding a grey layer and adjusting the transparency. By doing this I was able to integrate the colours in a way which was more visually appealing next to the grey. 

Final banner (Image by Amadee Stenzel)

I was overall happy with the final result. The colours work well with predominately grey theme I chose whilst still adding a slight pop of colour. 

Where words fail, font speaks.

I'm quite fond of font. I believe there's a connection between the font you use and what kind of person you are. For this blog I wanted to reflect my simplistic style and not over-do the overall appearance. Font was no exception to my simplistic ideal, I wanted something that was easy to read and complimented the ethereal quality of my theme. 

In researching the font I wanted to use I decided to gain inspiration on the Frankie blog and was delighted to find a post which linked me to blogger Emma Dine, writes reviews of different fonts. The post with font I found most intriguing was 'TOP-NOTCH TYPE #26' which discussed the font, Linux. 

Ideal Font: Linux

Linux Font (Image by Amadee Stenzel)

Linux was my ideal font, I knew it the moment I saw it. The tilted letters, the curled edges and the sense of familiarity connected with me. It's not often that you have an emotional bond with font and when you do, you embrace it. Unfortunately, I had an issue with using Linux as my blog font and ended up settling with Georgia. 

Settled Font: Georgia

Georgia Font (Image by Amadee Stenzel)

Side by side both fonts are very similar so it doesn't impact the overall affect I wanted to portray. Georgia font is slightly wider and more rounded than Linux, however Georgia does feature the same serif's on each character. 

I was disappointed that I couldn't use Linux on my blog but I am happy that I found an alternative that didn't completely sacrifice my ideal font style completely. Unfortunately, I'm not yet a master of html codes but I'm learning everyday.