So you might think that starting a blog is a pretty quick process. Decide on a platform--Weebly--check. Got the title -- Wallace Wonders--check. Time to post and write and create and explore. Hold on there! I want to make my blog look pretty, and that means creating a blog header. And what that means, in simple words, is lots of messing around, or exploring. Which for me meant some cool learning, so here's what I did:
Having recently watched TL Virtual Cafe's Digital Image Factory Webinar, I was excited to use some of the tools mentioned there. I was also ready to explore Canva, something mentioned quite often on Twitter, so this was my chance to dive in more deeply. I had created a header on my professional blog that I just wasn't happy with (can't find the image now that I've changed it). So first I started searching both Flikr Creative Commons and Morgue File for images that I could use, searching mainly for colors that say -- ME! Once I found a few I liked, I uploaded them into Canva, remembering to give attribution immediately so I didn't forget the image source, and then I began to play around.
I quickly realized that I needed to know the dimensions of a Weebly Header in order to create a header that would crop right and appear with less distortion, so a quick Google search gave me this information. In messing around with a different template, I found the Yellowtail font, which I kind of liked, so I went with it.
After a lot of time and trial and error, I was finally happy with my final product:
Having recently watched TL Virtual Cafe's Digital Image Factory Webinar, I was excited to use some of the tools mentioned there. I was also ready to explore Canva, something mentioned quite often on Twitter, so this was my chance to dive in more deeply. I had created a header on my professional blog that I just wasn't happy with (can't find the image now that I've changed it). So first I started searching both Flikr Creative Commons and Morgue File for images that I could use, searching mainly for colors that say -- ME! Once I found a few I liked, I uploaded them into Canva, remembering to give attribution immediately so I didn't forget the image source, and then I began to play around.
I quickly realized that I needed to know the dimensions of a Weebly Header in order to create a header that would crop right and appear with less distortion, so a quick Google search gave me this information. In messing around with a different template, I found the Yellowtail font, which I kind of liked, so I went with it.
After a lot of time and trial and error, I was finally happy with my final product:
I liked this background so much, I also decided to use it on my professional online presence. so I first needed to know my Wordpress template, which is Hemingway Rewritten. Then I did a quick Google search for the size needed for the header using this template. I created a new document in Canva, and this is what I came up with:
This process wasn't hard, just a bunch of messing around. It is definitely fun, design kind of stuff, and here, too, it's hard to get it perfect. I often felt like my text was fuzzy and the search for the perfect image takes time too. But once this work is done, I can sit back, admire the beauty, and move forward with some more exploring.
I had never made an avatar, so after exploring the Daring Librarian's Avitar Wiki, I decided to do some exploring. It looked like Go!Animate was the main recommendation, but I could no longer find a free version, and I was going for cheap. My Blue Robot Avatar looked pretty promising, but, again, there was a cost, and it was watermarked, so you couldn't just do a screenshot. Bitmoji turned out to be the one I spent the most time on, and I love the final result. I also love the Chrome extension and how my created emoji is now in tons of fun, silly options for me to use. I'm not sure what the copyright is on the character I created, but I did a little work with this image trying to create a .png image with a transparent background. I messed around with Clipping Magic, which I found to be the easiest and most clean creation, but again, there was a cost, so a no go for me. So instead, I used Ribbet and followed these youtube instructions.
I had never made an avatar, so after exploring the Daring Librarian's Avitar Wiki, I decided to do some exploring. It looked like Go!Animate was the main recommendation, but I could no longer find a free version, and I was going for cheap. My Blue Robot Avatar looked pretty promising, but, again, there was a cost, and it was watermarked, so you couldn't just do a screenshot. Bitmoji turned out to be the one I spent the most time on, and I love the final result. I also love the Chrome extension and how my created emoji is now in tons of fun, silly options for me to use. I'm not sure what the copyright is on the character I created, but I did a little work with this image trying to create a .png image with a transparent background. I messed around with Clipping Magic, which I found to be the easiest and most clean creation, but again, there was a cost, so a no go for me. So instead, I used Ribbet and followed these youtube instructions.
The final result was pretty clean. Here's a header image I had been playing with that included my transparent .png avatar:
It was definitely fun messing with all of these image creations and creating an avatar, but definitely time consuming. I definitely see the value of setting up your header and leaving it along. Looking forward to doing more with transparent backgrounds and .png images. Could be some fun teaching to do with some older elementary students.
Now that I am getting more into graphic creation, I also want to dive into StoryboadThat for more content creation using graphics and images.
This is all about exploration in it's messiest. I'm not even going to proofread this post before publishing (gasp). It is kind of late, so perhaps I'll proofread tomorrow. Got to do what you've got to do.
Now that I am getting more into graphic creation, I also want to dive into StoryboadThat for more content creation using graphics and images.
This is all about exploration in it's messiest. I'm not even going to proofread this post before publishing (gasp). It is kind of late, so perhaps I'll proofread tomorrow. Got to do what you've got to do.