30 More Excellent Blog Designs
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
Theocacao
Elitist Snob
Fiveruns — so simple yet so beautiful.
Blabolnik
TNTPixel
Rob Goodlatte
Gerrit van Aaken
Jared Christensen
PSDtuts
Verbalized — sometimes less is more. Close attention to small details is impressive.
Sam Brown – a truly modest design.
Weblogs Which Don’t Look Like Weblogs
Dan Rubin
The Adventures of Cindy Li
George Huff
grantmx designs – this one melts clever portfolio and blog
Blogsolid
Carsonified
Jrvelasco — quite noisy, but the noise fits to the subject of the weblog.
Simon Reynolds
Jonathan Durán
Nice And Original Blog Designs
Tobias Baeck
Chris Murphy — don’t forget to check the design of the archive section and the footer.
Anthony Casey
split da diz — interesting design: unusual approach for site structure.
Adrian Pintilie — the top section of the site is pretty colorful.
Cult Foo
She Unlimited

Tickerville
Amy Hoy
moddular — the design might look a little bit noisy, but it definitely has its personal style.
Victoria van Roosmalen — OK, this cat looks cool.





































Owen
November 22nd, 2007 9:05 pmYou call praegnanz.de an excellent blog design? *ggg* You must be kidding.
Phil
November 22nd, 2007 9:17 pmThere is some serious inspiration here… I have been considering a redesign myself and really want to now! Thanks!
Chris
November 22nd, 2007 9:19 pmTNTPixel would look a lot better without the big header picture imo. I still love the design *g*
Damien
November 22nd, 2007 9:24 pmIt’s just awesome, I love Blogsolid and Cult Foo ! Very nice design.
bmunch
November 22nd, 2007 9:52 pmThere 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.
Stevie K
November 22nd, 2007 10:03 pmThanks Smashing, I can always rely on you for inspiration at times when I am lacking it.
TechDune
November 22nd, 2007 10:14 pmNow,that’s what i call blog designs….
fen
November 22nd, 2007 10:26 pmVery nice, I love them.
TylerD
November 22nd, 2007 10:48 pmThanks for this list. It’s a very good inspiration… :o)
Ray Drainville
November 22nd, 2007 10:50 pmThe Dilbert blog. Are you kidding me?!?
Gonzague Dambricourt
November 22nd, 2007 11:16 pmOh :-) congrats to my very friend Polo for Split Da Diz which is being mentionned in this post !
Crazyleaf
November 22nd, 2007 11:19 pmSome great blog designs. Most of them I already knew. The Cult Foo has a superb design. Bravo !
Aditya
November 22nd, 2007 11:30 pmSome of the designs up there are quite innovative and creative. Thanks for the linkage.
kevinzahri
November 23rd, 2007 12:48 amvery cool blogs….i like how uniquely different but nicely done they all are :D
eMeRiKa
November 23rd, 2007 1:49 amI add one, my blog : http://www.affinity-web.org :p
Chris
November 23rd, 2007 2:01 amGreat post like always. Really great designs.
split da diz and cult foo were new to me. :D
Stoyan
November 23rd, 2007 5:54 amThanks for the inspiration!
Dan
November 23rd, 2007 7:21 amWhere is Bittbox?
Jan
November 23rd, 2007 9:07 amWhile i don’t think that praegnanz.de is the best amazingly well designed blog on earth i like how Gerrit works with whitespaces.
Starfeeder
November 23rd, 2007 10:32 amwow nice collection :o
def great inspiration…
Andres Santos
November 23rd, 2007 10:45 amI dont want to be vain, but check this one out, new theme, fresh and professional:
http://andufo.com
Greets from a concurrent reader.
David Englund
November 23rd, 2007 10:45 amI 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
http://one.revver.com/watch/494719/
FPM
November 23rd, 2007 11:07 amI used to be a homeless rodeo clown but now I am a world class magician !
Bubs
November 23rd, 2007 11:20 amI’m in love with Elitist Snob. Verbalized is cute, too ;)
jayhan
November 23rd, 2007 11:51 amTop notch list! I like Cult Foo’s. Great inspiration, thanks again, as always.
Mike
November 23rd, 2007 12:10 pmI think http://www.fazewire.com is a great web 2.0 site.
designcode
November 23rd, 2007 12:21 pmA very rich and healthy article from SM after a long time. Loved it.
Jermayn Parker
November 23rd, 2007 12:31 pmSome good inspiration, thanks!!
Bloghash
November 22nd, 2007 10:20 pmThanks 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
psycholq
November 23rd, 2007 4:20 pmpraegnanz.de … plz ;] try to be serious guys :)
V1
November 23rd, 2007 6:55 pmLOL, 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
Hubbers
November 23rd, 2007 7:08 pmOh no I just realised that my own blog is UGLY!!!
easypctips
November 23rd, 2007 8:12 pmMine too…oh well, that’s why I came – for inspiration.
TNTPixel looks very two point oh!
Igor
November 23rd, 2007 8:14 pmI’m wondering how TNTPixel was chosen to this list.
Open: http://www.tntpixel.com/
Then open: http://www.alistapart.com/
Designer when design TNT must be looked to alistapart… shame
HotBertaa
November 23rd, 2007 8:44 pmI’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, http://www.peterroper.co.uk
Its not got all the finishing touches, but I’m really pleased with the javascript and composition
JOY
November 23rd, 2007 9:13 pmVery creative and beautiful blog designs.
Himanshu Kapoor
November 23rd, 2007 9:55 pmThe best part is that there is enough of design treasure(graphics, layouts, tutorials etc) in most of the blogs. Thank you smashing magazine.
RP
November 23rd, 2007 10:13 pmWhy 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?
john
November 23rd, 2007 10:24 pmAnother great compilation!
70311
November 23rd, 2007 10:30 pmSo the definition or “excellent” in terms of blog design is “shit loads of wasted space”.
deprisa
November 23rd, 2007 11:31 pmAll of them are great designs in my oppinion, but I love the cat of evilgrin! It is just… So clean and so funny jaja
David Boyd
November 24th, 2007 12:15 amahhhh. a fresh wave of new designs…which one will I choose…
Avatariz
November 24th, 2007 12:28 amNice blog Blogsolid
Cristian
November 24th, 2007 1:19 amWhat do you think about mine? http://www.cristiangalletti.com
Wordpress based and widgets for the external columns.
Carlos Eduardo
November 24th, 2007 2:52 amI think my blog has a better layout than moddular, for example… You give some nice examples, but some of them are just “ok”.
Tyler
November 24th, 2007 3:09 amNice list, why stop at 30?
HotBertaa
November 24th, 2007 4:36 ammost 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.
TheMystical
November 24th, 2007 6:20 amMeh, I guess it’s my personal taste, but I only like few of them.
Anders
November 24th, 2007 9:40 amNice designs, but many of them have too large headers.
Water Buffalo
November 24th, 2007 12:27 pmYou 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.
Inkboy
November 24th, 2007 6:13 pmWith my blog i try to do something simple, colorful and original: http://www.mariejulien.com
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz
November 24th, 2007 6:38 pm@Water Buffalo: praegnanz.de is reposted by mistake. Sorry for inconvenience.
Vladimir
November 24th, 2007 7:54 pmNice collection. Blog solid gets my vote for best designed one.
Haris
November 24th, 2007 9:23 pmAwesome designs! I might use one of these for my blog :)
Mike - Digitalismo
November 24th, 2007 9:37 pmGreat post and inspirational.
Cheers
vishal sharma
November 25th, 2007 8:09 amits a good collection of blogs and reference site.
Sean
November 25th, 2007 9:48 amHi 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?
Yogi
November 25th, 2007 9:51 amNice list, but IMHO some of them shouldn’t be on the list :)
ChakraGoddess
November 25th, 2007 11:24 amawesome list — some of them (eg CultFoo) I want to dive right in!
xx
Anita
hafifi
November 25th, 2007 12:42 pmNice themes! what should i do if i want use it on my blog?
Naser
November 24th, 2007 11:20 pmWow, 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 still stuck with blogger :(
Ben May
November 25th, 2007 7:01 pmNice collection!!!! could be some more web 2.0 ones though
xexagon
November 26th, 2007 5:47 ampraegnanz.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.
Rodrigo
November 27th, 2007 12:41 amHi 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.
SNaRe
November 27th, 2007 6:13 amI have nothing to say they are really excellent themes. I hope one day i can design myself.
Mike
November 27th, 2007 7:24 amreally cool! but my website looks better
badbul
November 28th, 2007 7:58 amgood job design.. i love most of all that design! awesome!
David
November 28th, 2007 4:36 pma lot of good stuff!
plejeru
November 28th, 2007 6:08 pmAfter seeing Blogsolid I want to hide my blog somewhere deep ;
Casey
November 29th, 2007 12:55 amLet’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.
cellocoffee
November 29th, 2007 1:23 amHi, 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
Intotherain
November 28th, 2007 9:19 pmWow there are some great blog designs there. I love Elitist Snob and Cult foo
Sam Wilson
November 29th, 2007 10:29 pmHey 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.
Sam Wilson
November 29th, 2007 10:33 pmMy 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.
Sam Wilson
November 30th, 2007 12:34 amSorry for the double post above guys, my mistake.
coky
November 30th, 2007 12:10 pmreally cool! but my website looks better
Ibrahim
December 1st, 2007 12:56 pmwow, great designs!
Lukin
December 2nd, 2007 5:48 amHmmn, Jrvelasco blog looks similar to Dept. of Spanish & Portuguese of UC Berkeley site. Too similar.
Take a look and compare: http://spanish-portuguese.berkeley.edu/
Rodrigo
December 3rd, 2007 10:36 pmHe designed both of them:
http://www.miguelripoll.com/
MediaRoots
December 5th, 2007 9:13 amThe SuperJam Blog running on blogger is pretty cool. I would never have guessed it was powered by blogger.
ordinary
December 6th, 2007 9:16 amwell as always smashing magazine have great post. i would like to pass this one that i love the design as the post. http://www.edgarmanuel.com, see this one.
Utah Web Design
December 8th, 2007 1:52 pmVery nice designs! I need to revamp my own.
Ronny-André
December 13th, 2007 6:22 pmI LOVE Jared Christensens blog!
Drew
January 16th, 2008 12:25 pmCheck this one out Ten Thousand Things Clean and dark, very hard to find this days.
wizinga
January 25th, 2008 9:39 amVery, very, very nice designs!!!
Congratulations!
Wizinga
Tracy
February 20th, 2008 6:27 pmvery nice and thank the collection.
Junni
February 21st, 2008 5:19 amI’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.
Robin
February 21st, 2008 6:49 amI wish I could find the Jared Christensen design but I wasn’t able to.
bangjeehyun
February 28th, 2008 4:03 pmGood! I’d like to make as them.
Thinkbytes
February 28th, 2008 5:51 pmgreat looking blogs!
Chris
April 1st, 2008 4:52 amGreat Post! I love it!
Enlargement
April 2nd, 2008 7:36 pmFirst of all I d’like to say. This blogs have lots of imfomation and thay all imfomation is very important for me. http://www.breastenlargementx.com
XavYeah
April 15th, 2008 10:20 pmGreat design, i hope one day, mine will be in Smashing Magazine ! :) [ http://www.chewythascratchynutz.com ]
Maresa Sumardi
April 21st, 2008 12:49 amlove 80% of those designs, the other 20% is totally commonplace
Samir Shah
May 30th, 2008 8:04 pmloving wonderful design
Nancy
July 28th, 2008 11:57 pmyour article really gaves good knowledge for how to create a differ and good blog.
MOin
September 6th, 2008 12:22 pmbrilliant themes, i am using one of them on my secondary blog. nice effort keep up the nice work.
Jack
September 15th, 2008 4:44 pmI like the TNT design the best – makes your site seem like its da BOMB! @_@
-Jack @ Utah SEO
hiendgadet
September 27th, 2008 3:49 pmlike all the themes
Gigi
November 9th, 2008 3:42 pmI want to remake that “She Unlimited” template. I want to create something similar for my blog. Has anyone seen that blog design or one that can be easily modified? =(