Today we have a great interview with a huge voice in the Scottish blogging community. Writing from her home in Edinburgh Gillian's blog has a beautiful design and equally lovely writing. She shares everything from lifestyle, beauty and foodie pieces. If you are already fans of Elevator Musik we hope you enjoy an extra insight to Gillian or if you've not discovered her blog yet then please go and have a read.
Hello Gillian, Thanks so much for doing
this interview! We are huge fans of 'elevator musik’ but can you remember
why you started the blog and why you chose such a unique name?
I’ve had
various blogs and websites since I was around 14 (almost 10 years now, scary!)
but lost interest when I started university. During the summer holidays one
year I found I was bored and had lots of spare time, so decided to start one up
again, and 4 years later I’ve still stuck with it. I spent ages trying to come
up with an original name but couldn’t think of anything; I was about to give up
when I remembered I had already registered the name “elevatormusik” but not
used it. It’s based on the name of a song by Beck, it was just a bit of a
random choice whilst I was scrolling through my iTunes!
We always enjoy your big, bright and sharp photographs- which camera do you use and what tips can you give our readers about photographing for blogs?
I use a Lumix G3 camera. It’s
great because it’s a bridge camera so is cheaper and more portable than a DSLR,
but it still takes great photos. Lighting is definitely very important for
photos, I always try and take them in natural light to avoid using the flash.
Start off using your camera’s auto settings, but once you get more comfortable
using it definitely experiment on manual mode to come up with the type of
images you love. Make sure your images fill the whole width of your post too –
small photos are a pet hate of mine!
You have a lot of social media accounts- how do you manage to keep up with them all and which would you say is the best for promoting your blog?
There’s no quick trick to this
I’m afraid, it just takes time and organisation! I’m definitely guilty of
forgetting to update Facebook, but I much prefer using Twitter to promote my
blog anyway. As with a lot of bloggers, Twitter is my favourite social media
platform as it’s really easy to chat to other bloggers at the same time as
keeping people updated with your new posts. Whenever I have a spare moment,
I’ll scroll through Twitter and Instagram on my phone to make sure I don’t miss
anything good.
We love your blog design- you created it yourself wow! Do you have any advice for other bloggers looking for some inspiration when it comes to their layout?
Thank you! Pinterest is a great
place to look for inspiration and find cute fonts or graphics to use in your
design (make sure you have permission or use royalty free images, though!). If
you get confused by HTML, Etsy is a great place to look for cheap but lovely
premade designs. Get someone else to do the hard work for you and then add in
your own customisations! I also do a Blog Design Tips series on my blog with
some tips, tricks and tutorials.
I’m sure our readers would love to know what blogs are you reading right now- what makes a blogger stand out and makes you want to hit the follow button?
I love blogs with a bit of
personality as well as great writing and nice big pictures. The Blogroll page
on my blog has lots of my daily reads and Scottish blogger chums, but at the
moment a couple of my favourites are FAIIINT,
Katherine Louise, Cider
With Rosie and Ellalogy.
What does 2014 hold for your blog and where can you see your blog going beyond that in the future?
At the moment, my blog is just a
hobby and I’m quite happy to keep it that way. Blogging as a full-time job does
sound quite appealing, but I’d be worried that it would take the fun out of it
and I wouldn’t enjoy it any more. Instead, I hope to continue writing about
what I love, meeting lots of new Scottish blogger pals and attending some great
events. I love that over time my blog has veered towards lifestyle topics as
they’re my favourite to read and write, so hopefully things will continue like
this during 2014!
What single piece of advice would you give a younger you just starting out in the blogging world?
What single piece of advice would you give a younger you just starting out in the blogging world?
Get involved in
the blogging community, definitely! I’ve met so many amazing friends through
blogging who have now become “real life friends”, and there are always people
to chat to on Twitter if you need help, support or just a good gossip!
Yay for this feature - Gilian's blog is one of my ultimate favourites! <3
ReplyDeleteGreat Q&A - we started using larger images in our blog posts after reading this, as well as looking better they are also fair easier to upload. Thanks for the tip Gillian.
ReplyDelete