Setting up a blog in WordPress

Day 1. The blog has at least the following requirements:

write a short profile message through which you give insight in your current vision on your artistic practice
start using the blog as a means of collecting and categorizing visual, textual and other sources relevant to your artistic practice
start writing contributions on a regular basis, dealing with the progress in your working and thinking
create a base of resources/bibliography/links vital to (the context of) your work

Embed different media platforms and aggregate content within your wordpress blog

Personal domain (page) hosting (an excerpt of ) your research theme, your main goal / bio / manifest / …
- – either start the blog on this page or make it a clearly noticable menu- or image link on the homepage

Add a clear description for each visual, be it a film, image or animation ( and include the source).

Personalize your blog to have it communicate and breath, as much as needed, a unique signature.
- (colorscheme’s, adding media, custom header & background)

Create a space (page / post) to host your written pieces (essays, observations, …)

Changing the thick serif font, and the red colour on hover over and the links.
- wordpress tips

Removing the page title, for example: “Photos” – from the pages.
- example post without page title

How can I have a nice gallery to place in the photos? something like a slideshow or lightbox? Write now I just insert the photos into a post.
- gallery examples

In the page “Conversation with Carina Molier” once you click on a post, there are a couple of things at the end of the post page “About the author” and “About the post” Is it possible to remove these?
- remove about the author and or post can be removes depending on the theme, html & css code can sometimes help.

In the contact page, I wanted to place directly my email address and phone number, but I am not sure what is the safe way to do that to avoid spam. Could you give me your advise?
- Stating your mobilephone in plain text is a safe way to communicate it.
  - Spam is almost always finding its way through the comments of your post or a contact form.

If I need to buy the premium account in order to have control over these things, then how much is that? And does it include having a custom url address – without wordpress mentioned, and without reference to the theme name in the footer? And if I buy a premium account, will this remain valid if I change the theme later?
- A better way to go premium is to register a personal domain [example] and install the free version of wordpress.org. This free version gives you all the features and flexibility to completely design your blog / website to your liking, easily, including all the premium themes.
  - references in the footer can be switched of with a mouse click this way