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Now More Than Ever: 50 More Excellent Blog Designs
Designing blogs is easy. Designing blogs in a unique way is hard. Whatever blog engine you are using, there are literally thousands of templates available which you can apply directly, without any significant code modifications. That’s efficient, but it’s not creative, because using a default blog-template you risk to end up with some wide-spread look which has actually nothing to do with you. To convey your personality effectively, you need a design which reflects who you are and what you are doing. That’s why important is not just what you post, but also how you post it.
In fact, beyond the template-design-culture exists a field of creative, individual and impressive blog designs. And the good thing about it is that this field has been rapidly growing over the last years. To celebrate the creativity of blog designers we regularly present reviews of excellent blog designs we have stumbled upon recently. This post is no exception. Below you’ll find 50 further examples of excellent, unique and impressive blog designs.
Apart from “usual” minimal designs, one can observe more rather complex graphic works. If earlier only blog headers had striking visual elements, now whole web-layouts seem to have become more vibrant: paper clips, mp3-players, coffee cups and further objects are used extensively. Apparently, they are used as metaphors for the environment of site designers. Such designs are just impossible to copy and they unite the visual design with the author’s content in a unique and very personal layout.
You can also have a look at our previous showcases:
- 45 More Excellent Blog Designs (February 2008)
- 30 More Excellent Blog Designs (November 2007)
- 45 Excellent Blog Designs (August 2007)
Excellent Blog Designs
Narfstuff
Perfect integration of visual elements in a standard 2-column blog structure. Artwork.
Viget Labs
A pretty, clean, light and fresh blog design.
Dollarshort
Informal yet looking professional, with moderate use of white space and light colors.
coda.coza
The sixth version of Damien du Toit’s blog. Grid in use.
Brad Frost’s Blog
A truly creative blog design. This blog contains “words that would otherwise be coming out of designer’s mouth”. Literally.
Missy
Trendy stripes gone wild. The colors just fit together.
Popstalin.com
Beautiful visual composition which includes date stamps with a bird, search box with a bird and a navigation with birds. The RSS-bird is orange, of course.
Nzrn.com
Sometimes less colors is more. A very nice grid-based site layout which is easy to scan and to read.
tehCpeng
Wood, coffee, ear phones. This blog reflects the habits of its owner.
Antiphrasis.com
A blog with a very intuitive structure; nothing can really confuse a visitor and the date stamps are pretty sweet!
Lucy Blackmore
An artistic blog design for a blogger-artist.
Design Reviver
A magazine style blog with its own way of presenting the overview of recent articles.
Clemente
Blog design meets vintage style. If you will ever need to design a blog in the vintage style, here is how you could do it.
Viget Labs
Sometimes background image is everything you really need for a distinctive design. However, this blog offers more. Notice how well design elements are executed — e.g. article headings.
Freelenz
Achieving an intuitive design in complex layout isn’t easy. Ewald Natter manages to get it right. Although the layout isn’t simple, it manages to remain scannable and readable.
Bits & Pixels
Vivid colors on dark background look sexy. Can you find a space invader?
creative briefing
Simplicity at its best. This design emphasizes the importance of typography. Visual elements aren’t really necessary.
Ollie Kavanagh
Here the content seems to “hang” in the air which is unusual and attractive. The design is remarkable.
The Superest
A blog doesn’t have to contain posts. Kevin Cornell and Matthew Sutter present their illustrations in their blog.
Distortion
The level of detail in this design is remarkable. Every single detail is taken care of. The layout may seem a little bit complex, but it is not. Very impressive.
Mike Poss’ Rock Guitar
Simple, clean and stylish.
Mancub
“Thin” blog design. The navigation menu at the top is pretty funky.
woork
Antonio Lupetti impresses with a very clean design and keen attention to details. Calm, clean and very user-friendly.
Four Labs
A 3-column-based blog design which is really distinctive from usual blog designs.
Sketchblog
Interesting combination of illustrations and navigation in a blog design.
Spadewerk
Unusual blog design solution: both the left and the right column of the blog have the same width. This looks unusual but somehow attractive.
Internet Zillionaire
Creative blog design in the old-magazine-look.
davor peic.gavran
A blog design in which everything perfectly fits together. Don’t miss the nice Flash-based language switcher at the top of the page.
Kristin Ascoop
A blog design with feminine touch from Holland.
Kohette Design Web
Quite unusual, rather experimental solution. The RSS-feed-icon at the top of the site is animated.
Guifx
Light and fresh design. The calendar seems to serve as the primary navigation.
Home Design Find
Photos, rulers and paper clips in use.
yo vivo en vigo
This header is really hard to forget.
GlassHills – Web Design by Jackson Howell
A blog design with many curves, swirls, clouds, sun and a rising RSS-feed-icon.
Caty’s Blog
Apparently, Caty likes cats and small colorful illustrations.
Vectips
Simplicity meets white space meets fresh colors.
Revota
Maybe, there is a little bit too much noise on the page, but the way blog posts are presented is quite unusual.
I Am Neato
We don’t know who Neato is, but he seems to be really happy. Emilio Cavazos combines portfolio and blog on one page.
Susay
A vertical navigation menu in use.
Neweracaptalk
Instead of displaying excerpts of the latest posts, this blog first presents the titles of the posts and the latest forum posts.
Lisa Bettany
What does Lisa like? Right, photography and music. And where does she come from? Right, Canada. You see it immediately. That’s an effective use of visuals.
Moderno Prometeo
Similar ideas as in the previous design.
Pop Culture Tees
A t-shirt-blog in a pop-art-style.
Phil’s Proof
Ok, that’s probably too many details at once. But Phil doesn’t care. A really different blog design.
Alyssa Tucker
Summer colors for the summer mood. Can you find the swimming duck in the layout?
Catalyst Studios
A group-weblog with dozens of hand-drawn elements.
Dandelion Path
Sweet site navigation and sections labeling. All sections of the site are visible at one glance.
Stitchify
A unique blog design with a personal note.
The Co-Founder of Smashing Magazine. Former writer, web designer, freelancer and webworker. Author of several books. Runs the business.
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Loading ...- 72 Comments
- 1
- 2May 8th, 2008 6:11 am
Cool!
- 3May 8th, 2008 6:21 am
i love the Superest. i like the simpler ones, less colours, better.
- 4May 8th, 2008 6:28 am
Hmmm … NRZN.com claims to be published by TextPattern … Need we check all ?
As for the rest : I know taste is very personal, but I find most of these heavy on design & low on substance. Is there a relation between the two ?
- 5May 8th, 2008 6:30 am
nice list
- 6May 8th, 2008 6:38 am
Awesome tips! One of the best lists from Smashing!
- 7May 8th, 2008 7:36 am
now more than ever, blog design posts on smashingmagazine
- 8May 8th, 2008 7:57 am
Thank you very much for featuring my site!
It’s great to feel appreciated and I feel honored to be along side some fantastic designs.Jack (GlassHills)
- 9May 8th, 2008 7:59 am
cool!!
I believe that our blog can belong to the list, what do you thinks?thanks!
- 10May 8th, 2008 8:12 am
sad ..mine not in the list …
- 11
- 12May 8th, 2008 8:48 am
Thanks to Smashing Magazine for considering yovivoenvigo as an excellent blog design!
Maybe you can take a look to my other blog: Asian Trip… I miss China a lot :’(
- 13May 8th, 2008 9:05 am
Wow, really fascinating! Inspiration en mass. Thank you for this!
- 14May 8th, 2008 9:30 am
Great Post….. Excellent
- 15May 8th, 2008 9:56 am
Great designs, maybe my blog is on this site soon, too ;-)
- 16May 8th, 2008 10:43 am
I’m thrilled to see you’ve finally included a couple of Blogger powered designs in this showcase :)
Woork is excellent, but I was amazed to notice that Sketchblog is powered by Blogger! This is truly the best Blogger powered design I’ve ever seen (and I do go hunting for them!).
Thank you guys (and please include some more in your next showcase to inspire those of us who do host with Blogspot!).
- 17May 8th, 2008 10:54 am
I think I’m already sick of the table top grunge look…
- 18May 8th, 2008 11:20 am
Very good selection!! some of the blogs are very very good designed with awesome content!!
thanx for including me!
davor
- 19May 8th, 2008 11:54 am
Very interesting! Perhaps The Big Noob should be included?
much love,
sam - 20May 8th, 2008 1:47 pm
Inspire me to think out of the box again. Some of them are really cool!
- 21May 8th, 2008 2:08 pm
Just wanted to say thanks for the addition and being mentioned amongst all those great designs is an honor. I understand people’s opinion on ‘grunge’ being the in thing (or outdated already). I didn’t design it with grunge in mind, just a personal interest in graffiti and street art stemming from my print work.
Great post.
- 22
- 23May 8th, 2008 3:26 pm
Im so sick of that played out “sky and grass header then dirt for the body” ive seen so many sites like that its not funny.
otherwise some cool designs but there are some awful ones…
- 24
- 25May 8th, 2008 4:34 pm
Similar to vidget, check out http://www.dtelepathy.com – pretty awesome design, and recently re-launched.
- 26May 8th, 2008 5:15 pm
Basically the majority of the designs shown are complete crap. They are unreadable, don’t support accessibility standards and break all the rules of good design. They might make good static art printed and hung on the wall, if thats the way your aesthetics go, but as designs for websites the majority of them suck.
Most of them waste far too much space at the top of the page with static art and non-useful text and graphics, and also waste all the space round the edges. I’d be willing to bet that the majority of them are also poorly and inefficiently implemented, though that’s a whole other gripe.
And many are not very original. Four Labs, for instance is only a minor modification to the default Drupal scheme.
Whats the betting most of those sites were produced by the sponsors you list on this page, annoyingly taking up most of the width of it? I can tell you i’m very unlike to commission any of those sponsors in case they are responsible for this rubbish
- 27
- 28May 8th, 2008 5:42 pm
Wow, honored to be included in the list!
- 29May 8th, 2008 5:51 pm
While all of the sites are visually attractive, in the end, most of them are hard to read. Style over substance.
- 30May 8th, 2008 6:30 pm
Thanks for featuring Pop Culture Tees! Thrilled to be included next to some really great designs.
But also surprised at the level of lash-back against some pretty outstanding designs. If these were business sites then I could understand it, but the majority of these are personal, non-commercial ventures. Where else can you experiment and really push the boundaries of the status quo? I didn’t find too many of them hard to read, or unusable. And some of the best advances in web design have come from breaking old rules.
- 31May 8th, 2008 7:07 pm
It is just me or are 99% of these designs so busy they break every fundamental design rule of what is essentially a print media? I’m all for snazzy design, but seriously, not one of these falls into what I’d call “readable” content or design. I feel a head ache coming on just looking at them, and I’ve had a decade or more of reading insanity like WIRED magazine!
Honestly, can we go back to the basics of print design and create readable content that doesn’t make me feel like I need to jump up and run screaming for the hills for fear my cranium is about to explode? Ten points on all fronts for nifty graphical design, no question there, but print / content design, bzzzt.. nadda!
Cheers,
Dez
—
Dez Blanchfield
http://www.blanchfield.com.au/ - 32May 8th, 2008 8:09 pm
kohette.com is amazing. Very attractive.
- 33May 8th, 2008 10:16 pm
Uh-huh, 3 Viget blogs were listed.
- 34May 8th, 2008 10:22 pm
Hey, i like some of this blog designs. I allready knew some before.
- 35May 8th, 2008 11:20 pm
Thank you very much for mentionning my website !
- 36May 8th, 2008 11:33 pm
Nice design… makes me want to redesign. Thanks for the ideas!
- 37May 9th, 2008 12:29 am
OK, all these designs are great. BUT. These cant compare to those you listed from several months ago.
- 38May 9th, 2008 12:40 am
I really liked Brad Frost’s Blog, it’s very different. All of these designs make my default themed blog look really nasty though : (
Thanks :D
- 39May 9th, 2008 1:23 am
Cool to find one of my sites in the list :
- 40May 9th, 2008 3:43 am
i really like the ok one!
- 41May 9th, 2008 4:01 am
Wow, some great designs there! It’s nice to see designers that do a good job of incorporating the background with the foreground in templates. Something I need to do!
- 42May 9th, 2008 4:03 am
I went to coda.coza with firefox 2.0, and his site doesn’t display the same as it does in Internet Explorer. Everything kinda goes to 1 column instead of the 3.
- 43May 9th, 2008 4:19 am
I am the only one who thinks personal blags are a waste of bandwidth/hdd space/time/life?
Blags are the new version of Geocities/Angelfire webpages of the 90’s. - 44May 9th, 2008 4:21 am
I love coda.coza. I like simple (to look at), I like dark, and I like grids. And I love his home page. Very nice list. Thank you
- 45May 9th, 2008 5:20 am
Hello! Very proud to see my site (narfstuff) featured on the list alongside so many unique and creative designs, what an honour!
I do see where valid criticism lies in terms of the overcomplicated nature of some designs (my own included), and the fact that the grunge/distressed look is getting to be a little dated. Having said that though, It’s great to see the intent in the community to breathe some imagination and individuality into their work!
Cheers,
Fran - 46May 9th, 2008 7:43 am
Narfstuff and Lucy Blackmore are complete rip offs of http://www.webdesignerwall.com/
Same visual ID and matching Header styles and tabs….come on people let not just copy
- 47May 9th, 2008 8:09 am
tehCpeng.net
You wrote: “Wood, coffee, ear phones. This blog reflects the habits of its owner.”
That drink at the top of the blog is a form of Iced Milk Tea, specifically a very interesting blend; you can read about tehCpeng here. I would have thought that Smashing would have read the blog a little before commenting on it. :/
- 48May 9th, 2008 10:49 am
I’m sorry to say you have some very nasty readers here. Yet I notice none have the courage to post their own site URLs, which smacks of jealousy. Pathetic really.
It’s another good selection of designers who are not afraid to be different. - 49May 9th, 2008 12:57 pm
Thanks for featuring me amongst all these uber designs. nice butt shot screen grab! my mum was not impressed.
- 50May 9th, 2008 5:01 pm
I admit, I actually liked the earlier showcases more, because some of these just don’t seem to be as cool when it comes to functionality. Most just have pretty cool ideas for how to integrate layout graphics into their blogs. But not really innovative in some cases.
I was wondering if y’all would ever do other blog site layouts – like on livejournal, blogspot, myspace:
Just a suggestion! - 51May 9th, 2008 7:52 pm
there’s so much grunge design on the list…
- 52May 10th, 2008 5:54 am
niiiice….
- 53May 10th, 2008 9:11 am
Hi,
There are some exceptional sites here, thanks so much for including my site (mancub.net) in your list, I’m truly honoured to be amongst such great company!
- 54May 10th, 2008 1:47 pm
Indeed, some great designs!
___________
Kesepian. - 55May 11th, 2008 7:59 pm
I like the blog design that looks like a mouth, It’s just so hilarious
- 56May 11th, 2008 11:03 pm
Why does Smashing Magazine cut screenshots and put ordinary text hyperlinks?
- 57May 13th, 2008 6:35 am
Fantastic List.
I’d love to know how you find all these great sites.
- 58May 14th, 2008 4:51 am
Many Russian blogs have great design, please don’t forgot about it ;(
- 59May 17th, 2008 6:07 pm
really kool collection
- 60May 18th, 2008 7:40 am
I like all of the designs here, but I’m not much of a designer. I eventually ended up building something with the pressbox theme (http://www.creativesynthesis.net/blog/projects/web-commodities/press-box/). It’s a premium theme but it has a free version to try as well. I like how simple and customizable it is. Adding complex design elements is difficult for me and I think that focusing on simplicity is a good design approach.
- 61May 30th, 2008 6:33 pm
I have to say, Coda’s blog is freaking beautiful.
- 62June 6th, 2008 6:03 am
It takes time to design such exellent blogs. the collection is really kool!
- 63July 29th, 2008 12:44 am
Awesome tips and good suggestions for creating blogs.
- 64August 29th, 2008 4:05 am
wow I hope I can create something like this some day… *astounded*
- 65September 21st, 2008 1:49 am
Did you forget webdesignerwall.com ?
- 66March 16th, 2009 8:14 pm
i love this coda.coza templates so much, do this hv the xml free for download ?
- 67April 16th, 2009 9:51 pm
arent those designs downloadable? argh
- 68
- 69July 13th, 2009 8:26 pm
cool design
- 70September 2nd, 2009 10:20 pm
stimulate listening society beattie overlap statistical alway
Berberados Lemesarios - 71
- 72October 27th, 2009 10:54 am
Wow, some lovely templates featured here. I came across your site looking for a new template to suit me design. Thank you.
Regards,
David
Malaysia Asia
- 00
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- @ilmv oh ok then ;)
- @ilmv no, the SM Book will not be out of date :) We made sure it contains universal design, usability and marketing principles.
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- @HrvojeKC yes, that's an interesting idea. Maybe when the waiting is over, we'll write a detailed post about it.
I like the NZRN.com site and Mostly lisa i was familiar with. She’s pretty damned ballsy and a funny person to chat with too. I am mixed on a few of the more complicated ones. Some are too hard to read and too busy, but overall nice stuff.