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45 More Excellent Blog Designs

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We, designers, are creative folks. And being creative, we permanently strive for inspiration — innovative approaches, crazy ideas, smashing concepts and, in general, unique designs which can help us to observe a given problem from a fresh perspective. This is why we always have some fancy design books laying around on our desk, and this is why we enjoy observing other people’s work — basically just because we can learn a hell of a lot from them.

There are things one can do a number of times without worrying about becoming boring. For instance, collecting and showcasing excellent blog designs. In this post we do it already the third time. Why? Web design lives in blogs; new developments appear there, that’s where the music plays. And that’s where you need to look for in order to keep up with current trends and developments.

This post presents 45 excellent blog designs with a perfect layout and unique personal note. We haven’t analyzed the content of the blogs; instead we focused on ideas, approaches, graphics and layouts.

If you miss some stunning blog designs in this showcase please let us know in the comments. However, it’s also possible that these designs have already been covered in one of our previous showcases:

Excellent Blog Designs

Pat Dryburgh
Pat Dryburgh has probably one of the largest RSS-buttons ever created.

Screenshot

The Risington Podcast

Screenshot Blog Design

Erratic Wisdom

Screenshot Blog Design

Iso50
Magazine-style, very stylish, and pretty impressive.

Screenshot Blog Design

Wilsonminer.com
A very thought-out design with attention to little details.

Screenshot Blog Design

Brandonmouth

Screenshot Blog Design

ttthings.com

Screenshot Blog Design

Evan Eckard

Screenshot

cause/affect blog

Screenshot

Design Sponge
Scrapbook-style.

Screenshot Blog Design

Squawk
The “paper” theme in use.

Screenshot Blog Design

9513 blog

Screenshot

Sam Rayner

Screenshot Blog Design

Schneeballschlacht
Interesting not just because of two mascots, but because of a double-blog: two bloggers write together and against each other on both left and right sides of the navigation area. Interesting concept.

Screenshot Blog Design

Papuasia
Black and white at its best. Notice how well icons communicate information, block formatting in use.

Screenshot Blog Design

I Heart Luxe
A shopping magazine powered by Wordpress.

Screenshot Blog Design

Cameron.io

Screenshot

Plavackuv Blabolnik
Whatever it means…

Screenshot Blog Design

Bigsweater Design
Right. Big. Sweater. And the design. And this is how the result looks like.

Screenshot

Toggle

Screenshot

Nitram-Nunca

Screenshot

Josh Spear

Screenshot Blog Design

Blogwhatdesign

Screenshot

Spreeblick
Magazine-style design based upon WordPress.

Screenshot

PushStandards
Soft colors, visually appealing layout and hand-written links at the top of the page.

Screenshot

Brian Jeremy
Loves colors…

Screenshot Blog Design

Jamie Knight
Meet soft and cloudy design — that’s Jamie and his Teddy.

Screenshot Blog Design

Jeriko

Screenshot

Clean, Simple Designs

theshaun.com
Seriously cool, elegant and simple.

Screenshot

ExHero.de

Screenshot

Tomas Marban

Screenshot Blog Design

Benjamin Tollady

Screenshot Blog Design

ManiacalRage

Screenshot

Experimental Designs

TechGuyTales
Office notes, paper clips and wood background. Well, what do you expect? Sarcastic design fits to sarcastic blog entries.

Screenshot

Qwertcity
Vivid colors. Used together, they may be not that appealing, but they just can’t be not eye-catching.

Screenshot

Papel Continuo
Sometihng… completely different.

Screenshot Blog Design

Ideate

Screenshot Blog Design

Kulturbanause
The background determines the layout. You defintely haven’t ever seen a blog layout like this.

Screenshot Blog Design

Chris Contollini
An interesting integration of Google Maps into… well, a weblog!

Screenshot Blog Design

w3sh

Screenshot Blog Design

Ovavaho
Focus on illustrations.

Screenshot Blog Design

Peminoz
No fresh content, but interesting graphics.

Screenshot Blog Design

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  1. 1.

    Tim (February 20th, 2008, 9:26 am)

    Awesome list, thanks :-)

  2. 2.

    cemiotika (February 20th, 2008, 9:38 am)

    I love it!, great, really impressive work

  3. 3.

    Gerd Wippich (February 20th, 2008, 9:39 am)

    Great list of weblogs – I wish my day had more than 24 hours to have a look at all of them…

  4. 4.

    Keith (February 20th, 2008, 9:52 am)

    Em am I the only one who sees that David Hellmann ripped off electric pulp???

    Link [electricpulp.com]

    Link [www.davidhellmann.com]

  5. 5.

    anthonybruno (February 20th, 2008, 10:00 am)

    Yay for iso50 … Tycho is some good music

  6. 6.

    Jafar (February 20th, 2008, 10:17 am)

    Very Pretty Weblogs

  7. 7.

    Rolando Bouza (February 20th, 2008, 10:17 am)

    I liked erraticwisdom.com, but once you enter the site you discover that you cant read more than 4 lines with that fantastic font they use…

  8. 8.

    Crayon Guy (February 20th, 2008, 10:22 am)

    Plavackuv Blabolnik is in czech slang ;) and it means something like “Babbling of Plavacek” and Plavacek is name of author ;)

  9. 9.

    hackyilla (February 20th, 2008, 10:26 am)

    When I was searching for a plugin I’ve found a courious spanish blog that look’s great: Link [www.berriart.com]

    Those are so beautiful, thanks for a bit more inspration

  10. 10.

    Daniel Holter (February 20th, 2008, 10:34 am)

    I love Erratic Wisdom, and if you check out where he came from (in terms of his previous designs - in the archive) I think it’s pretty remarkable.

    Looking forward to the day my site design is on par with these… I am, admittedly, an rank amateur (!!) and a big geeky fan of web design. Oh well, it’s fun… and super great to continually be inspired by the sites you guys feature. Thanks.

  11. 11.

    Shane (February 20th, 2008, 10:37 am)

    @Keith - yes, I see where you’re coming from.

    Thanks SmashingMagazine - a great selection of inpiration!

  12. 12.

    agung (February 20th, 2008, 10:38 am)

    awesome……
    pretty cool

  13. 13.

    Damian (February 20th, 2008, 10:48 am)

    Some really stella design work

  14. 14.

    Eren Emre (February 20th, 2008, 10:52 am)

    really cool sites. thank you guys.

  15. 15.

    John (February 20th, 2008, 11:10 am)

    Great list of blogs. I wish I could design my websites like that.

  16. 16.

    Joshua Read (February 20th, 2008, 11:35 am)

    Thanks again guys, this is an amazing list.

  17. 17.

    Michael (February 20th, 2008, 11:39 am)

    I think this one Link [reinholdweber.com] would fit pretty well in the clean and simple category

  18. 18.

    Lukas Prudek (February 20th, 2008, 11:54 am)

    Plavacek is not author’s name but nickname. Author’s name is Miloslav Leseticky.

  19. 19.

    Joke Cricket (February 20th, 2008, 11:57 am)

    nice list

  20. 20.

    julien (February 20th, 2008, 11:58 am)

    very nice selection as usual ..

    thanks

  21. 21.

    Arne (February 20th, 2008, 12:08 pm)

    Really nice stuff! I think that one fits as well: Link [www.pixelgraphix.de].

  22. 22.

    Lipton (February 20th, 2008, 12:22 pm)

    I really like Link [nitram-nunca.com] and Link [www.brianjeremy.com]

    Dark colored backgrounds have a nice comfortable feel to me

  23. 23.

    David (February 20th, 2008, 12:47 pm)

    I think you forgot to mention this site: Link [timothysykes.com]

  24. 24.

    Raymond (February 20th, 2008, 12:51 pm)

    great examples. inspirational too.

  25. 25.

    Thame (February 20th, 2008, 1:05 pm)

    Thanks for featuring my site (erraticwisdom)!

    @Rolando Bouza:
    Are you talking about the body font? It’s 12px Helvetica which is usually pretty easy to read. It renders oddly on PC’s, but I don’t think it comes with Windows by default.

    @Daniel Holter:
    Thanks again man!

    The archives he’s talking about can be found Link [erraticwisdom.com]. Some of my earlier versions are pretty hideous, but I keep ‘em around so I can always remember how crappy of a designer I think I’ll be in a year.

  26. 26.

    johnny (February 20th, 2008, 1:10 pm)

    In the name of the whole team, specially Franziska, our designer: Thanks very much!

  27. 27.

    Michael (February 20th, 2008, 1:43 pm)

    Thanks for those wonderful examples. Amazing!

  28. 28.

    Pat (February 20th, 2008, 1:47 pm)

    “…Em am I the only one who sees that David Hellmann ripped off electric pulp???…”

    That is exactly what I thought as soon as I saw it.

  29. 29.

    Darren (February 20th, 2008, 2:11 pm)

    Excellent list!
    Link [www.sketche-d.com] didn’t make it? awww. jk!

    Keep up the good work guys!

  30. 30.

    Chris (February 20th, 2008, 2:25 pm)

    check out this one. i think it has an interesting design, even if from my point of view they still have to do a little more work Link [www.divercitycafe.ro]

  31. 31.

    Jeriko (February 20th, 2008, 3:07 pm)

    Thanks a lot for mentioning my site!

  32. 32.

    hunzonian (February 20th, 2008, 3:08 pm)

    awesome collection! Thank you indeed.

  33. 33.

    Sam Rayner (February 20th, 2008, 3:15 pm)

    I’m honoured to have my blog listed alongside such great sites, thanks very much. :)

  34. 34.

    Naveed (February 20th, 2008, 3:20 pm)

    nice collection…thanks for sharing :)

  35. 35.

    ruepel (February 20th, 2008, 3:37 pm)

    Am I the only one who is worried about the (color)noise of most of the pages? Some are so bad that i can hardly read them. And could someone please shoot down this electricpulp copiest? Man i hate it when people just copy!

    nevertheless, although i can find flaws with nearly every design, i do like the list because there are some fine examples on it.

  36. 36.

    andrej (February 20th, 2008, 3:58 pm)

    Very very nice blog designs. My favourite is the Qwertcity.

  37. 37.

    JONxBLAZE (February 20th, 2008, 4:19 pm)

    I love these designs, the creativity behind them is just phenomenal! Kudos to the designers and thanks for posting this.

  38. 38.

    Joe (February 20th, 2008, 5:01 pm)

    You left out one! Link [www.FireBettman.com]
    Great site!

  39. 39.

    Tom Ross (February 20th, 2008, 5:19 pm)

    Thanks so much for featuring my blog’s design (PushStandards.com), I’m honored! I’ll just go link back to you now :)

  40. 40.

    Shaun (February 20th, 2008, 5:27 pm)

    Totally awesome guys, thanks for posting my blog :)

    And keep up with the AWESOME site you guys have!!!

  41. 41.

    Rafael Hernandez (February 20th, 2008, 7:33 pm)

    I think Link [project47.viscountbox.com] has an excellent design too!

  42. 42.

    Digital Revolutions (February 20th, 2008, 8:35 pm)

    Bravo! A rather impressive list of some quite “smashing” designs. :D

  43. 43.

    Brandon Muth (February 20th, 2008, 8:40 pm)

    A kind “thank you” for your generous inclusion. Best regards, B

  44. 44.

    Entombor2 (February 20th, 2008, 8:58 pm)

    Link [www.kongregate.com]

  45. 45.

    Hairie (February 20th, 2008, 9:28 pm)

    great selection as usual..
    *inspiration….

  46. 46.

    Tobi (February 20th, 2008, 11:44 pm)

    Hi there,

    thanks for this compilation, but you forgot my layout. Its much prettier than some of the above mentioned, so please correct this :-)

    Best Regards from Berlin
    Link [blog.tobiwei.de]

  47. 47.

    antiheroe (February 21st, 2008, 12:31 am)

    Nice post, like always :)

  48. 48.

    Aronil (February 21st, 2008, 12:47 am)

    Fantastic list as always ^_^ any update for beautiful free blog designs?

  49. 49.

    Mike (February 21st, 2008, 12:58 am)

    and where is the rip?
    they looks like electricpulp but at last, is see two different sides. and any have made a good job.
    i think the mainproblem is, the colors are similar but brown and beige is a good combo…

    i see no problem there, sorry

  50. 50.

    Neil (February 21st, 2008, 1:32 am)

    Check this out

    sirehdancengkeh.com change the rotating image function for random quotes, cool.

  51. 51.

    Jan (February 21st, 2008, 1:36 am)

    Nice bloglist. However (not to sound too critical), how about a list of something other than portfolios/blogs/personal sites? I’d like to see some examples of more conservative, elegant corporate sites - small businesses, realtors, travel agents, hotels, that kinda thing. Blogs are a dime a dozen, its just so rare (and I guess harder) to make a good list of business sites, which after all, are the bread and butter of any web designer.

    As much as I love grunge ink splashes and tattered frames, or glowing light tentacles, your Joe Schmo realtor rarely goes for the outrageous, and Id like to see what fresh ideas other designers come up with when they are somewhat limited in their creativity.

  52. 52.

    imaginepaolo (February 21st, 2008, 2:23 am)

    Big list,
    where is my Link [www.imaginepaolo.com]?

  53. 53.

    AlainDelein (February 21st, 2008, 3:09 am)

    What is an excellent? OMG! These are shit.

  54. 54.

    karramarro (February 21st, 2008, 3:38 am)

    Great list.
    And thanks for linking Papel Continuo.

  55. 55.

    superxtian (February 21st, 2008, 5:06 am)

    Great bloglist, thumbs up!

  56. 56.

    DarkGrave (February 21st, 2008, 5:23 am)

    Pretty nice list!

  57. 57.

    Bali Web Designer (February 21st, 2008, 6:38 am)

    interesting list, but you must include webdesignerwall and ndesign studio also bittbox, i think they are qualified to be listed here.

  58. 58.

    Creativepayne (February 21st, 2008, 9:08 am)

    This is a nice list just for website design alone.

    I’ve also been listening to the Rissington Pod cast for a while now and have been really enjoying it. I know it’s not visual, but the “best podcasts” relating to design and development would be a really cool list.

  59. 59.

    Pat Dryburgh (February 21st, 2008, 1:16 pm)

    Wow… thank you so much! It’s an honour to be mentioned on here.

    Just so everyone’s aware… I’m working diligently to get my site back online… I wasn’t expecting nearly this many people coming to my site in the last little while…

    I’ll let you know when it’s back online.

    Pat

  60. 60.

    Pat Dryburgh (February 21st, 2008, 1:30 pm)

    The site is back up!

    I love my web host :)

    Pat

  61. 61.

    Pernan (February 21st, 2008, 1:56 pm)

    Very very nice all of them. Thanks for sucha good job. Papel continuo is the best for me! papelcontinuo.net

  62. 62.

    tingzi (February 21st, 2008, 8:06 pm)

    太好了! 谢谢!

  63. 63.

    Brody (February 21st, 2008, 8:42 pm)

    Great list of sites, guys. I read updates through my feed, but this is actually the first time I’ve commented here. Like others before have said, thanks for including us in your list and keep up the fantastic work.

  64. 64.

    Igor Jovic (February 22nd, 2008, 1:08 am)

    Very nice list!

  65. 65.

    Mista.k (February 22nd, 2008, 1:39 am)

    Strange list. Some are beautifulls, others like Sam Rayner, ttthings.com, Jamie Knight, Wesh or Kulturbanause are not interesting : just basic templates :(

    I like this ones

    Link [www.monsieur-alex.com]
    and
    Link [splitdadiz.com]

  66. 66.

    Sergio (February 22nd, 2008, 6:33 am)

    Hope you like Link [www.dailygrind.it]. Ciao!

  67. 67.

    AndyGM1 (February 22nd, 2008, 6:39 am)

    Great list, how about this one for simple?

    Link [www.darrenalawi.com]

  68. 68.

    itsameyer (February 22nd, 2008, 11:04 am)

    Keith (February 20th, 2008, 9:52 am)

    Em am I the only one who sees that David Hellmann ripped off electric pulp???

    Link [electricpulp.com]

    Link [www.davidhellmann.com]

    Ripped off? Inspired by perhaps, the colorscheme is similar and the blog is divided up in a similiar layout. But the overall creative concepts of theese sites are quite diferent.

  69. 69.

    Hamed (February 22nd, 2008, 12:20 pm)

    Very very nice ! thanks

  70. 70.

    Edwin (February 22nd, 2008, 2:36 pm)

    Great collection!

  71. 71.

    Robert Marbun (February 22nd, 2008, 11:47 pm)

    very interesting list.

  72. 72.

    Alika Tanaka Yarnell (February 23rd, 2008, 4:46 pm)

    Nice work. I’m proud to be part of your collection. Thank you so much!
    Link [www.QwertCity.com]

  73. 73.

    Mike Lopez (February 24th, 2008, 6:01 am)

    Nice collection, nice designs! I wish I had their artistic skills. :)

  74. 74.

    Genc Haritaci (February 24th, 2008, 12:04 pm)

    cool list. thanks

  75. 75.

    kashif ahmed (February 25th, 2008, 12:21 am)

    very fantastic,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,i m a regular vistor of ,the SMASHING.COM

    THNKS TO ALL THE TEAM….AND PRAY FOR HAPPINESS .
    OK

  76. 76.

    Leif Langsdorf (February 25th, 2008, 2:42 am)

    Thanks a lot for featuring our site Link [www.schneeballschl8.de]
    Keep the good work!

    See’ya
    Leif

  77. 77.

    ahnShev (February 25th, 2008, 3:27 am)

    wow, inspiring collection.

  78. 78.

    Bret bobby (February 25th, 2008, 12:33 pm)

    I can see your hard work in that great list.Keep it up.
    Your lists are inspiring me

  79. 79.

    Jermayn Parker (February 25th, 2008, 6:08 pm)

    Enjoyed that list!
    Thanks

  80. 80.

    Jon Aizlewood (February 26th, 2008, 4:33 am)

    Thanks for the list Smashing! Great for inspiration.

    …and here’s my requisite & shameless plug for my frehsly-hatched redesign: Link [www.carbongraffiti.com].

    Cheers!

  81. 81.

    David (February 26th, 2008, 8:45 am)

    thx for add my site…
    thx for delete my site…

    but really good pages!

  82. 82.

    Marlyse Comte (February 26th, 2008, 11:05 pm)

    great collection!

  83. 83.

    Sandeep Jangir (February 27th, 2008, 3:19 am)

    again great article!

  84. 84.

    Himanshu Kapoor (February 27th, 2008, 10:50 pm)

    There have been many sections on Blog design in the past and this is inspiring me to start my own. Thanks for these refereshing designs.

  85. 85.

    Nick (February 28th, 2008, 1:35 am)

    Great selecting of very inspiring designs.

  86. 86.

    Ralph (February 29th, 2008, 10:34 am)

    Not all blog designs are my taste, but there are much ideas like always.

    Thank you for your great summry about blog design from past until now….

    From Germany

    Ralph

  87. 87.

    yayix (March 5th, 2008, 8:34 pm)

    awesomeness! keep it up.

    - yayix Link [papermodeluniverse.blogspot.com]

  88. 88.

    la lene (March 6th, 2008, 2:05 am)

    Nice layouts ! :D

  89. 89.

    chip (March 25th, 2008, 12:42 pm)

    Thanks for showing us the variety of unique blogs. Very nice.

  90. 90.

    efelowe (March 27th, 2008, 2:14 am)

    i’d like to add a german blog to this awesome list
    Link [www.projekt-deutschlandreise.de]

    think it fits perfectly

  91. 91.

    kierkegor (April 2nd, 2008, 11:46 am)

    this design is very talent. designers feeling the atmosphere of our time with speed, replacing actions and culture of young people

  92. 92.

    nikos (April 10th, 2008, 5:06 am)

    Hey! Ripp off?? Thats a bad comment there…. Yes there is a small similarity to the background but nothing more than this. Getting inspiration from another website or other designers is not unsual tactic.

  93. 93.

    Pat (April 12th, 2008, 7:44 am)

    Just a quick heads up to everyone who’s been checking out patdryburgh.net. A few weeks ago I changed the design, and stopped using my large RSS Icon. However, a few days ago I did make it available for download on my portfolio at Link [atrickdesign.com]. Just go to the blog section, and download the .zip which contains a transparent .png of the icon.

    Enjoy!

  94. 94.

    matias (April 25th, 2008, 7:24 pm)

    thanks cordoba

  95. 95.

    jAVO (May 6th, 2008, 12:35 pm)

    Todos estan muy buenos, gracias smashingmagazine por el listado, ojala algun día quiero estar entre ellos

    Link [xprograf.blogspot.com,] Link [photoshopea.blogspot.com]

    gracias

  96. 96.

    Vip Vop (May 8th, 2008, 3:39 pm)

    Great list!

    but, why not this one?
    Link [defectosespeciales.blogspot.com]

    it’s mine! (just kiddin’ lol)

    thanks!

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