PhotoGuides is a great website for aspiring photographers. The website is particularly interesting because hosts a series of photo tutorials,galleries of inspiring photos,and refreshing stories of photo news. The aesthetic of the website also makes it easy for readers to find interesting articles and navigate around the site. The site is divided into categories and hosts a related articles widget at the bottom of every articles which keeps the reader on the site reading each interesting article.
Filmakers and Visual Effects artists of all levels are aware(or should be) of the great tutorials offered on the Video Copilot blog. The blog offers over 100 in-depth tutorials on subjects ranging from basic editing to advanced 3-d animation. What makes the site stand out is it’s ease of navigation and extensive archive of data. Specifically on the Blog section the each article is summarized and linked to a more extensive article.
Film School Rejects is a great blog to keep up with the latest movie news, read recent review, and see the newest trailers. The blog hosts a easy navigation with a blog style which summarizes longer articles so that the reader can browse multiple articles and read a small section of each before deciding to read the entire thing. This blog also allows readers to search specific topics that may interest them.
Final Cut King is another blog geared towards helping filmakers do the best with the video equipment they have and editing things to look realistic. The Blog is divided into categories that allow the reader to watch videos, see the behind the scene footage, or get a step by step tutorial. Having categories also allows for users to choose related articles(videos) at the end of each article. Zach King has also monetized his blog by selling in-depth software training videos; however the blog also gives lots of free content.
Overall, what makes a blog successful and appealing is interesting content that is well managed and to coin a design class term “economical.” Content is key in the blogging world, if a blogger has the most beautiful layout but no content to hold the readers attention it will never gain a large following. That being said if there is interesting content but the reader has to jump through hoops to find it the reader will again overlook it. Additionally when people read a blog post they don’t want to be sit at the computer for half an hour reading every detail, they want the meat and to get in and out with the information they want as quickly as possible. The overall goal is to have interesting content that is easily navegable, and is short sweet and to the point.