As you will have noticed, my blog has recently undergone a huge relaunch! It had been a long time in the works and so it's been honestly amazing hearing all of the positive feedback about it, especially since I was nervous about its reception as I made some drastic changes. I thought that there's no better way to commemorate this new era of my blog by allowing you to delve behind the scenes, and I asked on my Instagram stories the other day if there was anything in particular you'd like to know about my new blog. So here it is, your questions answered...
Why did you decide to relaunch your blog?
I started 'Daisies and Delights', as it was formerly known, in February 2014 - which is now a hell of a long time ago! I played around with the design in the early days but everything was pretty much constant from 2015/2016, and in all honesty, I'd just became bored of it. Looking at the exact same layout and design for years can really make you grow tired of it.
On top of this, you've got to remember that I was only 14 when I started my blog, and I've obviously changed and grown a lot between then and now. My old design perfectly encapsulated who I was back then, but I felt as though it was no longer
me and I wanted something that more accurately portrayed me. I mean let's face it, I started my blog before I'd even picked my GCSE options and now I'm going into my second year of uni!
Where did the name 'By Daisy Bradbury' come from?
This is something that I thought long and hard about, despite the simplicity of it (it really just is 'by' and my name - how inventive!) One of my main goals when relaunching my blog was to inject myself and my personality into it more, and now this is established right from the get-go by reaffirming how everything is by me. The almost diary style to the title is the perfect way to sum up all of my ramblings and recommendations, and it also seemed to work well for social media.
Perhaps the reason I put so much thought into this was because my old blog title, 'Daisies and Delights', was something I created on a whim simply due to it being girly and alliterative. While I liked the name and thought it was quite catchy, it had nothing to do with my blog and was quite childish in my opinion, being more reminiscent of my 14-year-old self than now. The name seemed to imply baking and treats in 'delights' and also the image of being a florist or nature enthusiast, which is far from reality, plus it also caused a lot of people to misspell my name, so I knew I needed a change.
Since the entire design changed, does that mean the content will be too?
To put it simply - yes and no. My content has already gone through large shifts in the past 5 and a half years, going from a solely beauty-related blog to one that also discusses my life, studies, books and pretty much anything I find interesting. I love having a large variety on here, and even if it doesn't fit into a specific niche, it's true to myself and what I enjoy, which is all that matters to me.
However, it'd be a lie if I said my content wouldn't be changing at all. I always strive to come up with creative ideas and put a lot of effort into blog posts, and this is something that I'll be continuing to do. I can't wait to push myself and create some exciting new content here on 'By Daisy Bradbury', and you'll have to stick around to see it!
How long did the blog relaunch take?
Looking back at my notes, I started planning the relaunch in March, meaning it took about 4 months to fully complete. This was a long and laborious process of finding fonts, perfecting designs and tweaking colour palettes, plus a lot of writing and photography to go along with it. I definitely think I could've done it in a much shorter time, but I was balancing this with university (especially my end-of-year exams) and working on the weekends, so my time dedicated to blogging was extremely limited.
Has anything changed about your photography and editing with the new blog?
A huge difference is that I've finally got a proper camera! I've been taking blog photos on my phone from the very beginning, starting on my iPhone 4s and then moving to the 6s a few years later. However, a couple months ago my boyfriend gifted me the Olympus Pen E-PL9 and I am seriously over the moon with it! Not only has it been my dream to have an Olympus camera for ages, but it's also massively improved the quality of my photos. I might actually write a whole blog post about it if it's something you'd be interested in seeing!
As for editing, I still use VSCO as usual, as it's my holy grail that I don't think I could replace. I still edit my photos in a very similar way, except I've been trying not to go overboard with the filters and instead try and recreate how products look in real life opposed to being highly edited, which is definitely useful for swatches.
Do you have an upload schedule for the new blog?
As of right now, I don't. I decided that I'm going to use the rest of my summer holidays just to get back into blogging since I'm really out of the swing of things. Whether that's uploading once a fortnight or a few times a week, I don't want to pressure myself to force out content and I'd rather take it at my own pace while I'm readjusting to frequent blogging. When I'm back in university in September I'll definitely have a more regular uploading schedule, but currently I don't know what it'll be.
How did you design all the graphics for your blog relaunch?
I'll be honest with you, it wasn't a quick process! My GCSE in graphic design really has come in handy over the past few months as I've been glued to Photoshop trying my best to perfect everything. I'm no expert and probably should've had a professional help me design these bits, but I quite like how I made them all and my blog is entirely true to myself. Plus, it was a fun revision break searching the internet for fonts and tweaking design ideas.
Let me know down in the comments what your favourite part of my blog relaunch is, and whether you're planning to do one yourself!
Post a Comment