What Was Absolute Magnitude?

While cleaning my computer I found this file (pictured above). An Adobe Illustrator file I created on May 21, 2024, which I had completely forgotten about until now.

It features the EyeSpark logo next to some text in the Recursive Monospace font reading "Absolute Magnitude". Although I had forgotten about this, now that I am seeing it again I am remembering exactly what this was supposed to be.

This was my first attempt at making my blog! Kind of.

More than anything it was a test to see if I could think of a good name, and a way I could style that logo which I already had in mind and started to use as a logo for myself.

"Absolute Magnitude" was definitely one of my test names for it, as at the time I was thinking about making a purely informative blog filled with my infographs, similar to what I did with my original blog in Medium. And the name comes from an astronomy term, which I also planned to make posts about (note how the original meaning of the logo was a compass for geography and a star for astronomy).

I remember another name I was thinking of at the time was "Karl In All Directions", which is similar to cardinal directions, but it didn't feel punchy enough. I remember making a logo for it, which I thought was around the same time, but actually ended up being made on September 2023, around 8 months earlier.

Now, when I say this was my first attempt at a blog, that is partially true.

I hadn't thought about making a more personal blog before this, however I did have to make one for a school assignment about a year earlier in October 2022.

The blog was called "The Map Zone", it was made in Blogger, and I never ended up publishing it, and I only shared the drafts to my teacher and some classmates.

Like the name suggests, the topic was extremely specific, and I basically only used it to share a few of my data visualizations I had made at the time, which were vectorised versions of the maps I previously made in Procreate, but that's a story for another time.

I feel like that assignment was sort of an early warning that I did not want to just have a blog dedicated to one thing in particular, but just be able to be free to talk about anything I want, which is exactly what I do here now!

Finding this old image of Absolute Magnitude has made me feel extremely proud of how far I have come, but it's served as a reminder that this didn't just pop out of nowhere for me, but rather starting this blog has been something that's been building up for over a year, and that I have finally been able to execute after so long! :)

Also I am honestly a very massive fan of that background gradient. I adore how the small bit of pink contrasts with the green logo and bluish dark grey background! Honestly now that I am looking at this I am kinda thinking about adding some deep pink-ish accents to my background, actually.

oh btw this is my 69th post lololol