Just when things couldn’t get any more complicated, my first review in TWR would deal with one of the reviewer’s blogs! But as fate brings it, so be it.
My initial impression was that this weblog was clean. Though I was not too familiar with Movable Type layouts, I saw the capacity of what other MT users can do when it comes to tweaking their templates. The “co.uk” part of her domain intimidated me a bit because I pressumed that this blog might be too classy for me or something. The sidebar didn’t help me learn much about Lori, the author, for it only had her archive and a bunch of various links. I checked out the about section, but that wasn’t much of help, too. She did say that she is “still not comfortable” talking about herself, so i assumed that her entries would just be an extension of her sidebar – a couple of links with a few additional info, comments and that’s it.
Fortunately, first impressions didn’t last in this case. The farther I went on reading her entries, the easier it became to see things through Lori’s vision. Though I’m not claiming that I am Lori’s long lost alter ego, she has this translucent power to make you shift your perspective without totally distorting them to point out something.
Her writing style is, shall we say, “excitingly neutral”. It’s cynical, written in a nice way. It’s serious but funny. It’s also a blog of variety, depicting the indefinite city life. One time she comments about the most interesting article on the Guardian (this one happens a lot), next she’s setting up blogmeets (this one, too), then highlights and lowlights of the tv culture according to her (uh, yeah). How she plays with words will draw you into reading what she wishes to say.
Design-wise, well, I had already hinted you a little about it, but I will say it again. The layout is clean. It’s not messy and exaggerated, but it doesn’t really pull of the minimalism concept. It’s not a boring layout, but much work can still be done, seeing what other MT layouts can do.
Other than being a personal blog, it is half a cam/photography weblog, too. Though most of her pictures are of her and her friends’ activities, she would always lead to them in her entries. These aren’t just random pictures that reveal her face to millions out there in the world wide web world, but are a part of her posts as well, which make them a very important element of her blog. She also has a forum, which is a rather peculiar alternative to tagboards or guestbooks and even considering that this is a personal blog, but she explains it’s purpose sometime in November or October, I think.
Whether it be about nostalgia (entries I really love), the F word or the Darkness, she delivers her thoughts in such refreshing ways. It’s like a Sunday newspaper article with a more personal sense. Seeing how she, most of the time, bases her opinions on not-so-political current events, it’s like she’s writing an editorial. Although the editorial may be the soul of a newspaper, how much soul can you put in paper anyway? Her entries are somehow like that. Lori seems to let the world revolve around her and she lets it dictate whether she agrees to the course or not. Her blog is rightfully categorized in the personal section, but she doesn’t quite succeed into letting you discover the depth of what she really feels. It’s not like most personal blogs wherein the world constantly revolves around them, but that can be either good or bad or both. The design also needs a little bit of work, though it is okay for now. You’ll enjoy lori-smith.co.uk, but if I were to judge by TWR ratings, it only deserves a rightful 4.5.…lorismith…