The Filipino Blog

http://thefilipinoblog.blogspot.com/


I stumbled upon this blog as I searched for famous Filipino blogs blogging about the life of a Filipino citizen, especially one from the Metro. I don’t know the author of the blog, but he seems to be keen on ranting about the Filipino culture in his blog entries.

When I first entered his site, I immediately thought one thing: CLUTTERED. The viewer would never think of where to look first. Good thing there are pictures, and viewers would simply scan the pictures and check which ones are interesting. On the other hand, his other picture-less blogs would be ignored. Even when this blogger offers to let visitors view his blog site in the most classical way, that is, a chronological order of his blog entries, from the latest one down, the viewers would still have to have the will to find such feature. Viewers who are too lazy wouldn’t even bother.

The monochromatic color scheme gives sophistication to this blog. This, and the peculiar layout of the blog almost make it look like a broadsheet. His pictures are not in high quality, but the pictures added more color and visuals to the site. The typeface is constant – from the site title to the title of the blog entries to the actual content, making this blog site look boring.

There are sharing features in this blog, though. An interesting blog could be easily shared in facebook.com and twitter.com. Viewers could also send feedback about this person’s blogs, and a search bar would be seen at the upper right-hand corner. The feedback button and the search bar were uneasy to spot at first. It was only after examining this blog site more that I found these features. Now, I could attest the fact that viewers would almost never notice anything placed on the right side of the page, most especially when they blend in with the color scheme, and when they are small.

My recommendation for this site: change the layout of the site. It is too cluttered and unappealing to the eyes. Change some of the copy to give emphasis on titles. His feedback and search button must be placed nearer to the left side of the site. But I like the formality of this site, and the appealing color scheme.