The Big Picnic graphic that’s used at the top of the site was perfect for the title. Blades of grass with nice clean cut text saying “Big Picnic” stretched out across it – had it not been 4 degrees Fahrenheit where I live, I would have ran right out for my own big picnic. Instead, I jumped right into this weblog.
Before diving into the articles at Big Picnic, I first signed up for an account. It took hardly any time at all and once I had my confirmed password, I could post comments, switch themes of Big Picnic, and even change my preferences of viewing the site any way I wanted. You can think of it has a very advanced bulletin board with very valuable content.
And the content – what content! News, Arts & Entertainment, Science & Tech, Web Miscellanea, Comics, Etcetera – you’re going to find something you’re interested in. Naturally, my curiosity led my directly to the “Arts & Entertainment” section. I was welcomed with movie reviews, art, sports, music, and anything else that could possibly fit into the Arts & Entertainment spectrum. Every base was covered and they were covered well.
I thought perhaps that Arts & Entertainment could have just been JNelsonW’s area of specialization, but I was wrong. Each of the other categories had just as many knowledgeable entries and opinionated articles as the next.
My favorite part of the entire design was the banner. My monitor uses a 1028×768 screen resolution, and still I had to scroll from left to right in order to see the entire site of Big Picnic. I’m normally not a huge fan at all of white text, but it looks sharp on this slate blue background. It’s easy to read and strays from the norm – a great combination.
This site is powered heavily by JNelsonW’s articles. There’s the ability to submit your own news articles, but from the looks of it, there haven’t been many people taking advantage of the freedom to do just that.
I like this site just the way it is. Could it be better with more users submitting their articles? It’s likely, but I’d be leery of adding someone else’s writing style to that which is already published and established at Big Picnic.