Fevered Mutterings is all about the (mis)adventures of aspiring travel-writer and village idiot (or so he claims) Mike Sowden. The author seems to be really into writing, whether it’s about his daily experiences at home, his wardrobe, his breakfast, or his home town somewhere in the UK. What’s great about writers who blog is that they bring in the same passion and flair for writing into their blogs. Reading Fevered Mutterings is like reading the manuscript of a well-written autobiography one day at a time.
Visual Aesthetics – 7
Fevered Mutterings uses a default Typepad theme, which is a simple two-column layout with the sidebar to the left. The layout uses minimal graphics, but instead focuses on the use of color combinations to emphasize important points and to separate the main content from the sidebar. The author uses images on most entries, and this helps the readers visualize the ideas he’s trying to convey. It’s nothing dramatic nor praise-worthy, especially with the use of a stock layout, but we give the blog above average points for sticking to something that works.
User Friendliness – 5
The main column text has high contrast, but I can’t say the same for the sidebar text, which can be a bit unreadable because of low contrast and the use of small fonts. The sidebar has an accessible “about me” link, and links to the archives, but the post entries’ static links are accessible via small links at the bottom of each entry. This can be difficult to access, especially if one wants to link to a specific post, or view comments.
Reading Enjoyment – 10
Reading enjoyment is the saving grace of Fevered Mutterings, the author being into writing. His blog posts manifest his passion for the art, which even extends to other media, such as film and music–topics that the author writes about occasionally. Whether you share the same interests or not, it is likely that you will enjoy reading Mike‘s blog because of the way he conveys his ideas.
Useful Info – 7
Fevered Mutterings is mostly a personal blog, but the author touches on several topics that readers might find interesting, not necessarily in a practical way, but because of the ideas that the author tries to convey. Still, it’s more of the “interesting” material, rather than really “useful” material, so we give it a tad above average rating.
Overall Experience – 7
Fevered Mutterings is well-written and the writing style of the author makes it an enjoyable read. One might have difficulties with the actual site, though, because of small typeface and some low contrast problems, particularly in the sidebar. Still, if you’re for the content rather than design, then this blog is worth the visit.
[tags]writer, author, literature, personal, journalism, travel[/tags]
