Review 2588

Very Big Blog took awhile to load, but it was well worth it. The design is flawless, incorporating bright colors and stunning retro imagery, with a flash menu, to boot. The design was so lucid, so fluid and poetic, I found myself scrolling slowly up and down, watching the shadows on the text boxes and reveling in the orangeness. When I finally turned myself away from this to the actual content, I was equally charmed The counter prominently displayed on the site is creatively worded: “# People Are Actually Reading This Garbage.” A blogger willing to refer to her own site as garbage is always going to be all right by me.

Jen has been blogging for two years, and her blog accents her design business (and is named for it.)Her posts are short, numerous, and many follow the traditional blog format of links and comments. The links are fairly original, and usually go beyond the normal “links to news sites” and include lots of funny/entertaining game sites. Jen doesn’t discuss her personal life much, but what she does discuss is very entertaining.

By far the best way to explore the site is via the Categories menu on the main page. It will point you to the several reoccurring features of the Very Big Blog, such as Swanky (a periodic posting of mid-20th century tunes) and a selection of consumer-driven haikus that had me laughing out loud. All sorts of MP3s are offered up at the site, and for iPod fans, it must be a treasure trove. Jen is very pro-mac, and has a while category devoted to them, which is sure to attract Apple-friendly fans.

Despite first appearances, the site’s navigation does indeed leave some to be desired. The beautiful picture is pleasing, but takes awhile to load on every single page, and while this happens, the page is oddly off balanced. Furthermore, some sort of Movabletype error keeps me from moving from the monthly archive pages to the categories without going back to the main page. This gives the site a strange, disjointed feel. I still love the colors and overall look, though. If only that image could load faster.

I definitely recommend Jen keep writing. Her adherence to blogging’s original repertoire sees signs of being successful. While this site could use an occasional design tweaking, the overall look and feel of it is very energetic and positive, as is Jen’s writing itself. Fans of blogging’s roots, Macintosh, music, and simply cool stuff will enjoy having Very Big Blog as a resource for their forays into the web.verybigblog