Smashing Magazine ~ we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really.
Smashing Magazine we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really.

30 More Excellent Blog Designs

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It’s not hard to design a weblog, but it’s getting harder when you try to achieve a unique weblog design. It doesn’t matter what weblog-engine you are using — frequently used themes tend to become boring over time, and they also don’t necessarily reflect the unique identity of the blogger.

To create an original design you need fresh ideas and creative design solutions. However, you don’t need to go too far with your design experiments. Basically that’s a close attention to finest details which makes a weblog stand out and gives it a fresh flavour and soft touch visitors can recognize immediately.

We’ve selected some more of them — over 30 excellent weblog designs with unusual design approaches; these blogs don’t only have a unique voice, but they also pay close attention to the finest design details.

  • You might find not all of the designs listed below beautiful; but that’s not what it’s about. They are beautiful in their own way as they are both well-structured and originally designed.
  • you can find further blog designs in the post 45 Excellent Blog Designs we’ve published before;
  • you can find even more designs in our Design Showcase section.

Simplicity and Whitespace

Andreas Pihlström

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Theocacao

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Elitist Snob

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Fiveruns — so simple yet so beautiful.

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Blabolnik

Screenshot Weblog-Design

TNTPixel

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Rob Goodlatte

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Gerrit van Aaken

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Jared Christensen

Screenshot Weblog-Design

PSDtuts

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Verbalized — sometimes less is more. Close attention to small details is impressive.

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Sam Brown - a truly modest design.

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Weblogs Which Don’t Look Like Weblogs

Dan Rubin

Screenshot Weblog-Design

The Adventures of Cindy Li

Screenshot Weblog-Design

George Huff

Screenshot Weblog-Design

grantmx designs - this one melts clever portfolio and blog

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Blogsolid

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Carsonified

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Jrvelasco — quite noisy, but the noise fits to the subject of the weblog.

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Simon Reynolds

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Jonathan Durán

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Nice And Original Blog Designs

Tobias Baeck

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Chris Murphy — don’t forget to check the design of the archive section and the footer.

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Anthony Casey

Screenshot Weblog-Design

split da diz — interesting design: unusual approach for site structure.

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Adrian Pintilie — the top section of the site is pretty colorful.

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Cult Foo

Screenshot Weblog-Design

She Unlimited

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Tickerville

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Amy Hoy

Screenshot Weblog-Design

moddular — the design might look a little bit noisy, but it definitely has its personal style.

Screenshot Weblog-Design

Victoria van Roosmalen — OK, this cat looks cool.

Screenshot Weblog-Design

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  1. 1.

    Owen (November 22nd, 2007, 9:05 pm)

    You call praegnanz.de an excellent blog design? *ggg* You must be kidding.

  2. 2.

    Phil (November 22nd, 2007, 9:17 pm)

    There is some serious inspiration here… I have been considering a redesign myself and really want to now! Thanks!

  3. 3.

    Chris (November 22nd, 2007, 9:19 pm)

    TNTPixel would look a lot better without the big header picture imo. I still love the design *g*

  4. 4.

    Damien (November 22nd, 2007, 9:24 pm)

    It’s just awesome, I love Blogsolid and Cult Foo ! Very nice design.

  5. 5.

    bmunch (November 22nd, 2007, 9:52 pm)

    There are some creative people here on this list.

    I wonder how the people in Smashing Magazine surf the web to frequently find such high quality web sites designs to showcase.

    Excellent.

  6. 6.

    Stevie K (November 22nd, 2007, 10:03 pm)

    Thanks Smashing, I can always rely on you for inspiration at times when I am lacking it.

  7. 7.

    TechDune (November 22nd, 2007, 10:14 pm)

    Now,that’s what i call blog designs….

  8. 8.

    Bloghash.com (November 22nd, 2007, 10:20 pm)

    Thanks for yet another great post. My blog design is underway and I am designing it myself. I have been referring to your earlier posts on WP design and they came very handy for my new theme design.
    Cheers!!
    > Raj

  9. 9.

    fen (November 22nd, 2007, 10:26 pm)

    Very nice, I love them.

  10. 10.

    TylerD (November 22nd, 2007, 10:48 pm)

    Thanks for this list. It’s a very good inspiration… :o)

  11. 11.

    Ray Drainville (November 22nd, 2007, 10:50 pm)

    The Dilbert blog. Are you kidding me?!?

  12. 12.

    Gonzague Dambricourt (November 22nd, 2007, 11:16 pm)

    Oh :-) congrats to my very friend Polo for Split Da Diz which is being mentionned in this post !

  13. 13.

    Crazyleaf (November 22nd, 2007, 11:19 pm)

    Some great blog designs. Most of them I already knew. The Cult Foo has a superb design. Bravo !

  14. 14.

    Aditya (November 22nd, 2007, 11:30 pm)

    Some of the designs up there are quite innovative and creative. Thanks for the linkage.

  15. 15.

    kevinzahri (November 23rd, 2007, 12:48 am)

    very cool blogs….i like how uniquely different but nicely done they all are :D

  16. 16.

    eMeRiKa (November 23rd, 2007, 1:49 am)

    I add one, my blog : Link [www.affinity-web.org] :p

  17. 17.

    Chris (November 23rd, 2007, 2:01 am)

    Great post like always. Really great designs.

    split da diz and cult foo were new to me. :D

  18. 18.

    Stoyan (November 23rd, 2007, 5:54 am)

    Thanks for the inspiration!

  19. 19.

    Dan (November 23rd, 2007, 7:21 am)

    Where is Bittbox?

  20. 20.

    Rubén Lozano (November 23rd, 2007, 7:40 am)

    Link [www.vostoktheme.com]

    Another blog to consider, well, is a theme for wp.

  21. 21.

    Jan (November 23rd, 2007, 9:07 am)

    While i don’t think that praegnanz.de is the best amazingly well designed blog on earth i like how Gerrit works with whitespaces.

  22. 22.

    Starfeeder (November 23rd, 2007, 10:32 am)

    wow nice collection :o
    def great inspiration…

  23. 23.

    Andres Santos (November 23rd, 2007, 10:45 am)

    I dont want to be vain, but check this one out, new theme, fresh and professional:
    Link [andufo.com]

    Greets from a concurrent reader.

  24. 24.

    David Englund (November 23rd, 2007, 10:45 am)

    I especially love “verbalized” that’s a very simple + powerful design style, I love designing, I eat, breath and burp it every day (well maybe not burp) - see below

    Link [one.revver.com]

  25. 25.

    FPM (November 23rd, 2007, 11:07 am)

    I used to be a homeless rodeo clown but now I am a world class magician !

  26. 26.

    Bubs (November 23rd, 2007, 11:20 am)

    I’m in love with Elitist Snob. Verbalized is cute, too ;)

  27. 27.

    jayhan (November 23rd, 2007, 11:51 am)

    Top notch list! I like Cult Foo’s. Great inspiration, thanks again, as always.

  28. 28.

    Mike (November 23rd, 2007, 12:10 pm)

    I think Link [www.fazewire.com] is a great web 2.0 site.

  29. 29.

    designcode (November 23rd, 2007, 12:21 pm)

    A very rich and healthy article from SM after a long time. Loved it.

  30. 30.

    Jermayn Parker (November 23rd, 2007, 12:31 pm)

    Some good inspiration, thanks!!

  31. 31.

    psycholq (November 23rd, 2007, 4:20 pm)

    praegnanz.de … plz ;] try to be serious guys :)

  32. 32.

    V1 (November 23rd, 2007, 6:55 pm)

    LOL, u see everybody here say: i found another great design! XD

    the praegnanz.de blog should stay there anyways it may not be the most pretty design of this list. But if u like clean clear styles, thats a really good blog design

  33. 33.

    Hubbers (November 23rd, 2007, 7:08 pm)

    Oh no I just realised that my own blog is UGLY!!!

  34. 34.

    easypctips (November 23rd, 2007, 8:12 pm)

    Mine too…oh well, that’s why I came - for inspiration.

    TNTPixel looks very two point oh!

  35. 35.

    Igor (November 23rd, 2007, 8:14 pm)

    I’m wondering how TNTPixel was chosen to this list.
    Open: Link [www.tntpixel.com]
    Then open: Link [www.alistapart.com]
    Designer when design TNT must be looked to alistapart… shame

  36. 36.

    HotBertaa (November 23rd, 2007, 8:44 pm)

    I’ve been holding off on submitting my site to the css sites for a while, waiting for it to be fully finished… but saw this and thought why not. Take a look, Link [www.peterroper.co.uk]

    Its not got all the finishing touches, but I’m really pleased with the javascript and composition

  37. 37.

    JOY (November 23rd, 2007, 9:13 pm)

    Very creative and beautiful blog designs.

  38. 38.

    Himanshu Kapoor (November 23rd, 2007, 9:55 pm)

    The best part is that there is enough of design treasure(graphics, layouts, tutorials etc) in most of the blogs. Thank you smashing magazine.

  39. 39.

    RP (November 23rd, 2007, 10:13 pm)

    Why is everyone so down on praegnanz.de? Have you actually been to the site?
    It may not be the most graphically impressive but it is designed very well and is clean and easy to read and navigate. Isn’t that a part of good design?

  40. 40.

    john (November 23rd, 2007, 10:24 pm)

    Another great compilation!

  41. 41.

    70311 (November 23rd, 2007, 10:30 pm)

    So the definition or “excellent” in terms of blog design is “shit loads of wasted space”.

  42. 42.

    deprisa (November 23rd, 2007, 11:31 pm)

    All of them are great designs in my oppinion, but I love the cat of evilgrin! It is just… So clean and so funny jaja

  43. 43.

    David Boyd (November 24th, 2007, 12:15 am)

    ahhhh. a fresh wave of new designs…which one will I choose…

  44. 44.

    Avatariz (November 24th, 2007, 12:28 am)

    Nice blog Blogsolid

  45. 45.

    Cristian (November 24th, 2007, 1:19 am)

    What do you think about mine? Link [www.cristiangalletti.com]
    Wordpress based and widgets for the external columns.

  46. 46.

    Carlos Eduardo (November 24th, 2007, 2:52 am)

    I think my blog has a better layout than moddular, for example… You give some nice examples, but some of them are just “ok”.

  47. 47.

    Tyler (November 24th, 2007, 3:09 am)

    Nice list, why stop at 30?

  48. 48.

    HotBertaa (November 24th, 2007, 4:36 am)

    most of these sites are found through cssremix or cssvault… while cultfoo has a nice header, I’d say its let down by its content. As much as the header is great, I dont feel inclined to read through the blog itself.

  49. 49.

    TheMystical (November 24th, 2007, 6:20 am)

    Meh, I guess it’s my personal taste, but I only like few of them.

  50. 50.

    Anders (November 24th, 2007, 9:40 am)

    Nice designs, but many of them have too large headers.

  51. 51.

    Water Buffalo (November 24th, 2007, 12:27 pm)

    You guys are simply reposting the same websites that you show in all the other round-ups. For example, the “praegnanz.de” blog was featured in your “45 Excellent Blog Designs” article as well.

  52. 52.

    Inkboy (November 24th, 2007, 6:13 pm)

    With my blog i try to do something simple, colorful and original: Link [www.mariejulien.com]

  53. 53.

    Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (November 24th, 2007, 6:38 pm)

    @Water Buffalo: praegnanz.de is reposted by mistake. Sorry for inconvenience.

  54. 54.

    Vladimir (November 24th, 2007, 7:54 pm)

    Nice collection. Blog solid gets my vote for best designed one.

  55. 55.

    Haris (November 24th, 2007, 9:23 pm)

    Awesome designs! I might use one of these for my blog :)

  56. 56.

    Mike - Digitalismo (November 24th, 2007, 9:37 pm)

    Great post and inspirational.

    Cheers

  57. 57.

    Naser (November 24th, 2007, 11:20 pm)

    Wow, great job again. Blogs like Elitist Snob or Grantmx Designs stand as testament to how far web-design has come since flashy, glittery GIF’s and annoying MS-Frontpage made ticker messages (oh, wait, I forgot about Myspace).

    I hope someday, I too can get a few bucks under my belly and buy me a unique domain to do some freelance designing. Until then, I’m Link [atunu.blogspot.com] :(

  58. 58.

    vishal sharma (November 25th, 2007, 8:09 am)

    its a good collection of blogs and reference site.

  59. 59.

    Sean (November 25th, 2007, 9:48 am)

    Hi Mr. Lennartz, I’m a PR student at the University of South Florida and we are studying the growing popularity of blogging. If I wanted to get an influential blogger’s attention such as you, how would I go about getting my issue out to the masses?

  60. 60.

    Yogi (November 25th, 2007, 9:51 am)

    Nice list, but IMHO some of them shouldn’t be on the list :)

  61. 61.

    ChakraGoddess (November 25th, 2007, 11:24 am)

    awesome list — some of them (eg CultFoo) I want to dive right in!

    xx
    Anita

  62. 62.

    hafifi (November 25th, 2007, 12:42 pm)

    Nice themes! what should i do if i want use it on my blog?

  63. 63.

    Ben May (November 25th, 2007, 7:01 pm)

    Nice collection!!!! could be some more web 2.0 ones though

  64. 64.

    xexagon (November 26th, 2007, 5:47 am)

    praegnanz.de is really good; it’s obviously designed to be read (check out the attention to leading and margins, and the measure). Most of these are graphically superb, but that doesn’t make them great design.

  65. 65.

    Rodrigo (November 27th, 2007, 12:41 am)

    Hi Igor,

    Save for the navigation, which looks kind of similar I guess, I fail to see any other similarities.

    I based my design of various newspaper clippings I have laying around in my house. That’s the look I was going for. Kind of like old newspaper sections. I think ALA is going for a similar “old print” kind of look, and in that regard, that particular headline style is a very very used formula in print. Go ahead, get some newspapers, you’ll see.

    Unoriginal? mmm, perhaps. Plagiarism? NEVER.

    You should inform yourself better before pointing your finger, Igor. Plagiarism is a very nasty thing, I don’t condone it, and I don’t do it.
    I looked at your site, and I could assume you copied it from a MYRIAD of other sites that look identical to yours. But I understand that it’s obvious that you will run into many many similarities through some sites (especially when you are trying to mimic a particular style, like print).

    Plagiarism is by far the worst thing you can call a designer, but I assume you don’t know that since you are clearly not one yourself… shame.

  66. 66.

    SNaRe (November 27th, 2007, 6:13 am)

    I have nothing to say they are really excellent themes. I hope one day i can design myself.

  67. 67.

    Mike (November 27th, 2007, 7:24 am)

    really cool! but my website looks better

  68. 68.

    badbul (November 28th, 2007, 7:58 am)

    good job design.. i love most of all that design! awesome!

  69. 69.

    David (November 28th, 2007, 4:36 pm)

    a lot of good stuff!

  70. 70.

    plejeru (November 28th, 2007, 6:08 pm)

    After seeing Blogsolid I want to hide my blog somewhere deep ;

  71. 71.

    Intotherain.org (November 28th, 2007, 9:19 pm)

    Wow there are some great blog designs there. I love Elitist Snob and Cult foo

  72. 72.

    Casey (November 29th, 2007, 12:55 am)

    Let’s say there was a writer who had an appreciation for design and an artistic inclination, but sucked technically…how would said person go about making his or her blog as cool looking as some of these? Hypothetically speaking of course.

  73. 73.

    cellocoffee (November 29th, 2007, 1:23 am)

    Hi, love your information here. I am a blog newbie, and I write in Chinese. Is it OK to translate this post in Chinese and link to your page?
    Thanks,
    cellocoffee

  74. 74.

    Sam Wilson (November 29th, 2007, 10:29 pm)

    Hey Casey, I’m the person who did Tickerville above and I’m happy for my client that it was included here. My suggestion to you is to pick up a book list CSS Mastery and open up your mind to thinking in terms of CSS. CSS wasn’t my forte when I begin that site, but I found the book to be crucial in turning designs into an actual site.

  75. 75.

    Sam Wilson (November 29th, 2007, 10:33 pm)

    My advice is to pick up a copy of CSS Mastery by Andy Budd and make it your new Bible. I barely knew CSS when I did Tickerville but that book helped me execute the design pretty faithfully. The biggest thing is having patience. With a lot of patience and reading the right books, you’ll be stunned with what you can do in a few weeks.

  76. 76.

    Sam Wilson (November 30th, 2007, 12:34 am)

    Sorry for the double post above guys, my mistake.

  77. 77.

    coky (November 30th, 2007, 12:10 pm)

    really cool! but my website looks better

  78. 78.

    Ibrahim (December 1st, 2007, 12:56 pm)

    wow, great designs!

  79. 79.

    Lukin (December 2nd, 2007, 5:48 am)

    Hmmn, Jrvelasco blog looks similar to Dept. of Spanish & Portuguese of UC Berkeley site. Too similar.
    Take a look and compare: Link [spanish-portuguese.berkeley.edu]

  80. 80.

    Rodrigo (December 3rd, 2007, 10:36 pm)

    He designed both of them:
    Link [www.miguelripoll.com]

  81. 81.

    MediaRoots (December 5th, 2007, 9:13 am)

    The SuperJam Blog running on blogger is pretty cool. I would never have guessed it was powered by blogger.
    Link [www.superjam.co.uk]

  82. 82.

    ordinary (December 6th, 2007, 9:16 am)

    well as always smashing magazine have great post. i would like to pass this one that i love the design as the post. Link [www.edgarmanuel.com], see this one.

  83. 83.

    Utah Web Design (December 8th, 2007, 1:52 pm)

    Very nice designs! I need to revamp my own.

  84. 84.

    Ronny-André (December 13th, 2007, 6:22 pm)

    I LOVE Jared Christensens blog!

  85. 85.

    Peter Chen (December 27th, 2007, 10:44 pm)

    Great templates, but no mention of which blogging platform they are from. I am only interested in 3 column Blogger templates and I clicked on “TNT pixels” and that lead to a blog, no template download link. Plus at the bottom of the page, it says, “proudly powered by Wordpress”. At least let visitors know what blogging service the templates are for. Don’t know if you read or respond to comments. And hope you don’t consider the links in my signature lines as spam or advertisement.

    Peter Link [buzz.blogger.com]
    Link [blogger-tricks.blogspot.com]

  86. 86.

    Drew (January 16th, 2008, 12:25 pm)

    Check this one out Link [www.ttthings.com] Clean and dark, very hard to find this days.

  87. 87.

    wizinga (January 25th, 2008, 9:39 am)

    Very, very, very nice designs!!!
    Congratulations!

    Link [www.wizinga.com]

  88. 88.

    Tracy (February 20th, 2008, 6:27 pm)

    very nice and thank the collection.

  89. 89.

    Junni (February 21st, 2008, 5:19 am)

    I’m integrating a Wordpress blog at this moment, into my existing website. Maybe I get some inspiration out of those designs. I like the layouts, but I prefer more simplistic ones.

  90. 90.

    Robin (February 21st, 2008, 6:49 am)

    I wish I could find the Jared Christensen design but I wasn’t able to.

  91. 91.

    bangjeehyun (February 28th, 2008, 4:03 pm)

    Good! I’d like to make as them.

  92. 92.

    Thinkbytes (February 28th, 2008, 5:51 pm)

    great looking blogs!

  93. 93.

    Chris (April 1st, 2008, 4:52 am)

    Great Post! I love it!

  94. 94.

    Enlargement (April 2nd, 2008, 7:36 pm)

    First of all I d’like to say. This blogs have lots of imfomation and thay all imfomation is very important for me. Link [www.breastenlargementx.com]

  95. 95.

    XavYeah (April 15th, 2008, 10:20 pm)

    Great design, i hope one day, mine will be in Smashing Magazine ! :) [ Link [www.chewythascratchynutz.com] ]

  96. 96.

    Maresa Sumardi (April 21st, 2008, 12:49 am)

    love 80% of those designs, the other 20% is totally commonplace

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