Reflective Essay Network Aesthetics
Before analyzing the work that took place on my blog Alpha-digitalwave.com I would like to share with the readers my vision of aesthetics applied to the network. First of all, the aesthetic is that philosophical discipline that deals with the senses, especially with regard to the network, of visual images, because our Western culture is visual centered (the images are not only visual, Jewish culture, for example, is rather more interested in hearing). It is often said that ours is a culture of images, in which everything becomes superficial and easier, for example, a child with the playstation (which always has a chance to start again the game) has more difficulties to understand that the real world is not reversible. This image culture often leads us to give more importance to form than content, and sometimes the content is entirely set aside in favor of form. On this basis, I coined my idea of creating a blog not as alternative to the major similar website but aesthetically pleasing and easy to use.My blog is based on photo-sharing. The structure consists on five pages, four of which serve as album / content for categories in arts choices based on my personal experiences and knowledge. These are photography, painting, cooking and 3d. The fifth page works has home page with instructions and welcome message. As mentioned from the beginning I wanted to point to a basic and linear structure so that anyone who comes on the site does not feel lost among thousands of pages and options with complex layouts or forum rambling often clogged with messages often not related to the content itself. In the process of building my blog I tried to avoid the creation of "media-mazes" trying to contain a level of aesthetic close to minimalist. But the simplicity does not avoid the problems of construction. Using Wordpress I have been involved in sometimes very long and incompressible processes of errors with plugins faulty and incorrect codes. The first problem was a plugin I bought which functionality on the CSS modification was to not consider accessible from my level of knowledge about CSS, then I decided to change and after various testes I was able to find a plugin that fitted the style of my site, but more importantly, that integrates the main function file upload on the pages where installed. As a second dilemma I had to find a theme that would fit the color changes with simple layouts and structures connected with a CSS easy to modify. Very fortunately after I tried more than ten different themes I stumbled upon a theme called Mantra. Mantra is a WordPress theme, featuring a pack of over 100 customization options and easy to use tweaks capable of tuning WordPress to your very specific needs and likes. With the help of a simple and efficient user interface whoever can customize everything: the layout (1,2 or 3 columns), total and partial site widths, colors (all texts, links, backgrounds etc..), Fonts (over 35 font- families plus all Google Fonts), text and header sizes, post metas, post excerpts, post formats, header and background images, custom menus, 27 social media links and icons, pins, bullets and much much more. With a fully responsive layout, customizable to showcase presentation page, animated slider, magazine and blog layouts, 8 widget areas, modern graphics and an easy and intuitive admin section. With this theme I had access to everything I needed to create my own custom layout. The home page “About” for example has been made trough some options inside the theme itself that included custom Page bar and slideshows, this last one I integrated with some images modified in photoshop and working as link to other pages. On the categorize pages I have integrated the plugin to upload to the galleries and sn inspirational quote from some favorite authors. Navigation and uploads have been tested and are currently

working. The colours chosen for the