Tuesday 10 November 2015

Goodbye Upon My Sleeve - hello The Same Old Chic


HELLO, it's me - the same me, actually. Don't worry, I haven't morphed into Adele heartbreak (the worst kind), I've just had a complete blog relaunch and I'm struggling to hide my excitement! I'd been contemplating the change for a while now but as I've already changed my blog name twice before I was hesitant it would cause some more disturbance. Then I thought, why the hell not? I have to do this for me.

The more I produced, the more unhappy I've been with Upon My Sleeve. Although it's brought me some fantastic growth and prospects, I'm still not where I want to be and I think the resentful attitude was what was stopping my motivation and desire to create content direct to my intentions. It's like an ex; at the time you think it's the best thing for you, but then months down the line you cringe when looking back.

I think I've finally made up my mind with this decision - one that I now consider long term for my indecisive self. It's something I'm now looking forward to defining myself by in my blog adventures. I have evolved greatly since the beginning (remember Oh So Bridie any of you avid readers?) and I'm grateful for everything that's come my way but I just felt I needed to make my persona relevant. I've now reached a comfortable stage. I'm still trying to find my way into the blogosphere but I'm ready to reinvent myself in this new chapter. As the saying goes, hopefully it's third time lucky. 

So, what's new? 

The name: I've been driving myself insane trying to contemplate a trivial name for my blog. My name is very difficult to work with and nothing sounded sleek enough to represent what I'm aiming for. I wanted something fresh, airy and clean, something that suits me as a whole and fits in with the content of my blog but nothing came to mind. After some serious power thinking, mind boggling, over analysing and disagreeing with my many picks, The Same Old Chic was built. I'd love to claim there's some powerful meaning behind the name but really, I just have a strange fetish for the word 'chic' and wanted to incorporate it into my blog somehow. I've seen the quote printed on various items and loved the quirky, comical edge to it. I guess it does summarise me and my not-so-but-sometimes extravagant daily outgoings, and allows me to shape my blog content down the line. It reflects generically and doesn't pinpoint to one subject which allows me to express various topics and interests.

The design: I couldn't reinvent my blog without rearranging the entire design. With the help of pipdig and his genius, minimalistic templates, an up to date theme was born. My favourite combination of black, white and light grey still remains, and the navigation is still simplistic and *hopefully* eye catching to draw in my lovely readers. There's now a post slider displaying my array of latest posts, updated imagery, and from now on my posts will be lined as 'read more' as I think this makes everything look so much tidier. 

The commenting system: the one thing I was worried about was completely ridding of blogger's commenting system and swapping over to Disqus. Luckily it was an easy change over and I didn't get too confused. My previous comments are synced and still visible so there's not going to be much noticeable difference for you, just that you'll now be using the Disqus tool to sign in and leave your mark which I hope you are okay with. I've noticed more and more people using Disqus and I think it's a great way to interact with your readers. I often want to find the time to respond to your comments and what better way than installing a feature that allows you to reply individually?!

New categories: in my drop down categories box in my navbar there's two new specifically listed labels that makes it more straight forward for you to find what you may be looking for. My Wednesday Wishlists and Sunday Natters are in there, along with a spanking brand new section; food and drink. As I attend so many food and drink based events and as I love to travel locally to discover some new gems, I thought it was only necessary to compact my related blog posts into one segment. I'm sure there'll be plenty more cocktail induced write ups coming your way...

Social media handles: with a blog name change, comes social media name changes to match. To ensure my blog is established, both my Twitter and Instagram are now the same and I'm still in the process of informing the Facebook and Bloglovin' team of the change. I have also used the same photo of me for most of my accounts. Once everything is complete, my identity will be much clearer! (I'm even thinking of starting up Pinterest - although it's going to enhance my desirable spending habit I think it would benefit my re-brand).

There hasn't been a mega, drastic change. I've stuck to my roots and haven't sunk too steep. My content won't be affected, I'll still be posting about whatever I fancy covering the basis of my blog; fashion, beauty and lifestyle. I am intending on including more personal style established posts as this is something I'm eager to improve but apart from that, I'm carrying on as normal and targeting towards posting every two days; just with a better, more professional approach.

It's amazing what something as a simple as a re-brand can do for my optimism. The fresh start has brought me some well needed inspiration and I feel like I'm finally moving forward. Not only that, I managed to complete it all by myself and for a non-technical, easily stressed person, I'm pretty proud of myself. Understandably, there's still a few tweaks that need tuning here and there so you may have to bear with me whilst I'm finalising the issues. SO, if some things don't look right, that's why. I hope you can stay with me and join me on a new, focused journey. I apologise for being so damn picky and ambiguous but I'm sure it won't take too long to get used to The Same Old Chic (tsoc for short, just so you don't boggle your mind wondering what my social media details stand for).

If you'd like to inform yourself of my new handles, you can find them here:
Bloglovin // thesameoldchic (still needs to be informed of change)
Twitter // bridiextsoc
Instagram // bridiextsoc
Facebook //  The Same Old Chic (still needs to be informed of change)


Lots of love,
Bridie x
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