Amour Ophelia. ALL POSTS

I feel like this post is long over due since I’ve been blogging on Squarespace for about 6 months now, but it’s time to start talking about it and give you all the information you need on why I moved to how to navigate your way around it. Since first starting my blog, I’ve always had a clear design in my mind in terms of how I eventually want it to be and what kind of look I want to go for and although I loved Blogger, it just didn’t meet my needs and I didn’t feel as though I could grow the design and graphics on Jasmine Harding Makeup as well as I wanted to. This was when I knew something had to change, I first looked into Wordpress and although it’s different to Blogger, it didn’t seem a big enough change and I still would have been restricted in design which is what led me to discover Square Space. I first spoke to my super duper friend Stephanie from Cocochic who was on SS and I just knew it was for me. So with the move in my mind, it was time to make it happen. After a long 3-4 days of the entire process, JHM was live as a Square Space hosted blog, but lets take it back to the beginning and talk about each step I encountered along the way.

WHY I CHOSE SQUARESPACE

With a specific design in mind, I simply couldn’t find any pre made Blogger templates that had all the features on I wanted on my site so knew that Square Space was the next step. Working on a creative outlet like Square Space allows for your creativity to really shine through and gives you so many options in terms of design. I was initially worried about whether I could transfer my content across from Blogger but with a step by step guide, it was the easiest part of the entire move, all my posts came back (just without any comments). For me, moving to Square Space was the best decision I’ve made in blogging, it’s allowed me to be as creative as I can with JHM and gives me the ability and control everything from font, colour, image size, post layout, nav bar, background colour, when ever I please. It’s great to know you are in total control of your blog and can change anything you like, to whatever you want, at any time. Unlike pre made templates, you don’t pay for a blog design, you pay a monthly fee (I pay about £6) which I believe is a very reasonable price for what you get with it - a blog, shop, business card etc which you can totally design yourself.

DESIGN

Picking a template was probably the hardest part of the Square Space move, with over 20 to choose from, it was very over whelming and I didn’t really know where to start, this is where the incredible 24/7 customer service team come in handy. Over the entire blog move, I exchanged 100 emails with a number of different Square Space experts, they are all amazing at what they do and couldn’t have been more helpful, any query I had, they answered. So the way in which SS templates work is that each one has different features, for example; some have a nav bar, others don’t, some will have the option of a ‘read more’ blog post where others simply display the entire post. This is apparent for everything from a visible side bar, to a gird layout and scrolling blog posts. With a clear idea of what I wanted my site to look like, I contacted the customer service team and they emailed back with the templates they believed would suit my needs. Once I’d picked a template, it was time to get creative. After sketching out design ideas, I started implanting it into the site. SquareSpace works on building blocks, everything you see on my site has been added in myself through the Style Editor section, making it incredibly easy to add in and delete anything you don’t like. No HTML is needed although SS works on CSS Coding which I have used across my site and added in some coding to help achieve the finished look (this was incredibly stressful as it’s vital you add in the correct code).

A FEW MONTHS DOWN THE LINE

After being on Square Space for a good few months, I felt the urge for a big change again, which is now my current site. I decided to stop blogging for 2 weeks, lock my site and crack on with designing it to perfection. After long nights, tearful days and crazy hours, I had finished the design and couldn’t be more thrilled with the final look. I went for a total new style, I wanted everything to look bright, sleek and luxe whilst being easy to navigate around and incredibly graphic. I chose the Galapagos template for those wondering and completely changed the look with extra CSS Coding and adding in the right building blocks where I needed them. There are still things I want to change on my site which sadly can only be done my CSS Coding so each day I’m teaching myself some more and trying to find the code that works, but this is the beauty behind Square Space, you really can change something at your convenience, making the design vey unique and creating something that reflects your brand, the way you want it to.

THE RESULT

6 months have passed, and Square Space is still the best decision I made for the future of Jasmine Harding Makeup. I love how my creative flare can shine through and I have the ability to create a design I love and am proud of. I couldn’t have done the process without the exceptional 24/7 Customer Service team, they really are an amazing team who helped me every step of the way. This was more of a sum up post to introduce a new series to Jasmine Harding Makeup. Once or twice a week I’ll be writing about Square Space, covering every thing you need to know if you’re thinking about moving over. Future topics will include Design, Templates, Editor Section, Getting used to a new platform, How To’s etc! If you have any specific topics you want me to cover, then please please leave it in the comments below or tweet me @jasminehmakeup!