50 Beautiful Blog Designs
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 fifth 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.
In the showcase below we present 50 beautiful blog designs that literally stand out — either through their layout or through their design or through their attention to little details. Below you’ll find a variety of designs: clean designs, grunge, retro, graphics-heavy designs etc. Most designs presented below risk unusual approaches in the choice of design and content presentation. That’s what makes them different. Hopefully you will find some creative ideas which you can develop further in your further projects.
We strongly encourage designers to break out the common layout conventions, experiment with new approaches and risk crazy ideas. Show what you are capable of!
You may want to take a look at the following related posts:
- Excellent Blog Designs: Part 1
- Excellent Blog Designs: Part 2
- Excellent Blog Designs: Part 3
- Excellent Blog Designs: Part 4
Beautiful Blog Designs
Standards for Life by Natalie Jost
Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyeard Book
Matthew Buchanan
Clean structure and good use of icons and typography. The icons at the left side of the posts stand for the category the article belongs to.
Clean Designs
LittleEngine
LittleEngine provides an interesting integration of the blog into its overall design. Clean and very elegant solution which employs only few colors, but uses them effectively. The navigation is provided by the calendar in the sidebar.
Grunge, Handwriting and Collage
Retro, Vintage, Experimental
Related Posts
You may want to take a look at the following related posts:
AthenaEmily
October 23rd, 2008 3:45 pmNice list!! thx!! amazing designs!
chrisnager
October 23rd, 2008 3:47 pmi like korbinian folk.
Robert Bowen
October 23rd, 2008 3:48 pmsome nice looking sites gathered.
Violeta
October 23rd, 2008 4:03 pmYep, “glossy style” is dead. Very cool blogs ^_^
Gabe Diaz
October 23rd, 2008 4:21 pmGreat selection, thanks for sharing!
fabien thomas
October 23rd, 2008 4:27 pmVery nice selection, i hope my blog will be in one of your list a day ;))
Thanks for sharing
Aisling
October 23rd, 2008 4:32 pmThank you so so much for featuring dreamling.ca!! You guys are so lovely! :D
Gis
October 23rd, 2008 4:56 pmOoohhh my god! I am dying now, blushed! I send my students to read you guys all the time!! Now what wil I say! What an honor!!
Christopher Anderton
October 23rd, 2008 5:00 pmWow. Nice to have Matblogg in the list! :)
I follow SmashingMagazine everyday. So it’s was a nice suprise to find my blog in the list.
Cheers!
Raphael Aleixo
October 23rd, 2008 5:06 pmWow. Thanks a lot. Is an honor to be spotlighted in Smashing Magazine!
ahnShev
October 23rd, 2008 5:32 pmlove it soooo much. really inspiring.
pixelinjection
October 23rd, 2008 5:38 pmAmazing design blogs! I really like the first one though!
Sofhal Jamil
October 23rd, 2008 6:08 pmWow, it’s amazing!!!!
flko
October 23rd, 2008 6:31 pmmuy bueno
yo
October 23rd, 2008 6:37 pmTypo in the link Designworklpan.com!
Jeremy
October 23rd, 2008 6:42 pmThank you so much guys for featuring l’effet crea, lot of hard work was put in that design!
Christopher Ross (thisismyurl.com)
October 23rd, 2008 6:50 pmGeez, I didn’t make it again? hm … OK, I guess I can see why.
Alex Linebrink
October 23rd, 2008 6:53 pmAwesome list!
Thank you SOO much for featuring my site — That INDIE Dude.
PLEASE check out my latest venture if you have a chance. It’s called We Design Change, and it is a meeting place / launching pad for designers and artists who want to use their creativity to make the world a better place. Sign up and tell your friends! :)
Thanks again for the mention!
Evan
October 23rd, 2008 7:14 pmThe Neil Gaiman and Jason Santa Maria blogs are extremely impressive. Anything put out by Vidget is also top-notch… awesome work!
ephi
October 23rd, 2008 8:03 pmDang, Natalie Jost’s website returns 403 forbidden for me. I always love her designs.
Camu
October 23rd, 2008 8:12 pmLoodo is awesome!!
rzepak
October 23rd, 2008 9:52 pmvery nice collection
you could try one day something else, like showcase of not-english blogs ;)
Dave
October 23rd, 2008 10:32 pmWOW :-) Very Nice Designs
kile
October 23rd, 2008 10:43 pmReally nice :)
srinivas
October 23rd, 2008 10:44 pmtoo good designs…
every thing is inspiration … thanks
Yuukan
October 23rd, 2008 11:10 pmThanks again, some of this design are really awesome !
Damien
October 23rd, 2008 11:33 pmGreat :)
Please guys next time, could you put anchors on each design ? :P
Bramme
October 23rd, 2008 11:43 pmVery nice list! Though a lot of these designs are top notch, I do feel my blog would fit in one of these lists too!
pickupjojo
October 24th, 2008 12:49 amWow, your best feature SM! :)
Hope I’ll see mine one day… Just kidding. :p
Joffrey,
Geek and Hype
basetta
October 24th, 2008 1:28 amgreat list guys, as usual ;)
I was hoping to see my blog listed eheh!
Ole Martin Kristiansen
October 24th, 2008 2:27 amThank you very much for featuring my site, and even putting it on the front page. What an honor! Too bad my site has gone down because of all the traffic, I really really need to change my hosting.
Thanks!
Moqbali
October 24th, 2008 2:45 amVery nice designs.
Thank you.
Mia
October 24th, 2008 3:01 amI love jasonsantamaria.com :) The typography and layout is awesome! Hyper Island is also great!
Ash Chuan
October 24th, 2008 3:31 amGreat list. I am going to bookmark this page and reference to it later.
黯然销魂剑
October 24th, 2008 3:48 amSo amazing!
stefano picco
October 24th, 2008 4:02 amvery impressive, I like it :)
Ricardo
October 24th, 2008 4:06 amVery impressive designs.
I like Loodo and Meagan Fisher specially.
Tom
October 24th, 2008 4:14 amImpressive indeed. One of my favorites is Ten Thousand Things, personally I’m a big fan of dark schemes.
Densil
October 24th, 2008 4:16 amGreat designs..Realy
The Dude
October 24th, 2008 4:18 amNice collection there! Some great designs and good inspiration :)
Mr. Reality
October 24th, 2008 4:56 amSome nice designs, but many seem (to me) a bit busy and quite trendy. But hey, if that’s what you’re into…
Larry Bradshaw
October 24th, 2008 5:11 amThis is awesome list! It always great to get new inspiration from others. I constantly make tweeks to my theme based on both feedback and ideas used in other designs. I’m thankful that I am always getting comments on great design for our site.
Heavy Metal Blogger
October 24th, 2008 5:12 amDamn, didn’t make it into that list – again :-)
Carl
October 24th, 2008 5:43 amcheck hollowell.se :D
i like it coll idea with the letter
stephanie
October 24th, 2008 6:10 amWow , what a surprise ! ! ! Thank you for listing my blog :-) !!! Stephanie
Conrad
October 24th, 2008 6:42 amNice designs. But I must point your attention towards http://www.nalden.net. It is a completely flashbuilt site but it’s functions are amazing.
Sophie
October 24th, 2008 6:57 amThanks for featuring leffetcrea, that’s so nice :-D
Pat
October 24th, 2008 7:17 amBar none, the best design here is AmyMahon.com
(And, she’s my cousin :) )
Adam
October 24th, 2008 7:33 amI’m sorry, but you clearly left one out, http://www.qualityxhtml.com/blog/
Vanilla Man
October 24th, 2008 7:52 amAmazing blog designs in one line with simple and usual ones.
Curt Simon Harlinghausen
October 24th, 2008 7:56 amNice List. I really like your categories. Stay tuned . . .
Bäne
October 24th, 2008 8:01 amreally amazing
tom
October 24th, 2008 8:37 amThanks, Smashing, for featuring tff4.com — I’m not sure it deserves to be in the kind of company as many of these other incredibly creative blog designs, but the love is appreciated nonetheless.
dude
October 24th, 2008 9:04 amThat drawing of that indie dude, I want to punch it in the face.
Fabryz
October 24th, 2008 10:18 amTagged for future inspirations! :D
squeekeme21
October 24th, 2008 10:19 amnice post. these are great examples of good website design. :0]
kyle borges
October 24th, 2008 10:32 amNice compilation. sezio.org is another great blog design focusing on the musical and visual art scenes in California.
Jehzeel Laurente
October 24th, 2008 11:36 amwhoa! loving the potato an ispoil! :)
Cito
October 24th, 2008 11:37 amAnd once again I am smashed! I don’t know how do you find such a great combination of designs, thanks a lot for that big piece of inspiration! :D
I love SM!
Korbinian Polk
October 24th, 2008 3:34 pmmy name is korbinian Polk
Kris Markstrom
October 24th, 2008 9:05 pmReally impressed with the many blog designs — thanks. Like Thomas Finley’s very much!
Celina Gomes
October 24th, 2008 10:24 pmwow! It’s superb. Really very impressive and unique blog designs.
Khai
October 24th, 2008 11:05 pmoh my fod!! what a design?!!!!! thanks for sharing..
embuck
October 25th, 2008 1:05 amNice list as usual…
Chris Ovenden
October 25th, 2008 1:08 amToo many gushers in these comments, but I agree with the people who said that *some* of these designs are inspirational. Most of them, IMO, are twee, unimaginative and utterly predictable – which I guess is inspiring in a different way. Thanks for presenting a list of design clichés to avoid. I like Ali Felski’s blog, though.
Antones
October 25th, 2008 8:23 amHey !
nice list !
However… i know a beautiful blog design… it is called Journal Graphic
journalgraphic.com
I think it must integrate this list.
Bye
Mr. Diggles
October 25th, 2008 10:02 amwhy are the most celebrated blogs always super graphic heavy?
Some of those I don’t even know where to start.
baratas
October 25th, 2008 10:11 amVery good. Congratulations.
Saude e paz! Peace!
Liberty Girl
October 25th, 2008 12:43 pm*sigh* Commented on wrong post before, argh.
This steampunk design makes me drool: http://sekimori.com
Max Black
October 25th, 2008 5:58 pmI found the CSS/XHTML-only “speaking block” navigation of High Resolution an inspiration for a design I’m doing. Thanks!
ronda hd
October 25th, 2008 7:49 pmthis is my favorite – simplegreenclean.com
but on this list i really like the nonesuch layout
ali
October 26th, 2008 3:59 ami enjoye design
meli
October 26th, 2008 2:36 pmi also luv http://www.cooloutfit.at
just a little fashion blog – written in german, so i can´t really read it – but the layout just nails it! perfect for a fashion blog!
Igor Jovic
October 26th, 2008 2:56 pm@ Mr.Diggles #74
I agree with you on this point and I have asked myself the same question. BUT, I don´t think that the focus in this case is on Usability, instead the focus is basically as they write “designs that literally stand out”.
I think that a lot of these blog designs are beautiful and outstanding but the usability on some of these blogs is not so good. For instance, if you disable images in your web browser, suddenly you are handicapped because the main navigation disappears, (Main navigation = HUGE Image) .
Anyway, Keep up the Good Work SM!!
Green
October 26th, 2008 7:20 pmI like “viget.com/extend” & “Marchand de Trucs”!
Adam
October 26th, 2008 9:03 pmImpressive long list
-Adam
Indrazz
October 26th, 2008 11:51 pmwooow great design… may I get one of these theme?
Kris
October 29th, 2008 11:03 amI like the fact that this list includes elements of all design styles. I think we’re in a bit of a car crash when it comes to popular and inspiring blog design, taking bits and pieces from one another to form a finished product. Personally, I welcome our new Frankenstein design overlords.
Basant Kumar
October 30th, 2008 3:09 amReally the blog designs are beautiful and excellent and it helps the designers for designing new templates and new websites also.
Really excellent work!
Rachel
November 3rd, 2008 2:23 amA really lovely list! I think Ali Felski is my personal favourite :o)
Gunjan
November 4th, 2008 3:05 amWow Really it’s nice design
RAM
November 7th, 2008 1:23 amcool website
Jim Green
November 11th, 2008 3:04 pmBeautiful designs, but the busyness of many of the blogs simply takes my eye and interest away from the content.
For me, when it comes to a blog, form should always follow function. Less is more. Blah blah blah.
Kalea
July 7th, 2011 10:54 amKnoweldge wants to be free, just like these articles!
Snook
November 30th, 2008 3:07 amGood selection ! :D
Toby Cummings
December 7th, 2008 9:26 amI’m honored to find one of my site designs (www.lynnterpretation.com) on your list. Thank you so much for recognizing my work. I’ve long been a big fan of smashing!
CarGuy
December 17th, 2008 2:49 pmvery interesting..nice
Blah
January 4th, 2009 10:37 amMost of these made me cringe — several extremely busy layouts in this herd
blogsfamily
January 5th, 2009 9:32 pmThat really artistic blog design, thanks for share, its very useful for me
gitong
February 4th, 2009 12:35 amIt’s really inspire me. Thx guys.
nami
February 6th, 2009 6:28 pmIt’s “粋” in Japanese.
It means smart.
mbak maya
February 25th, 2009 1:59 pmit’s amazing jobs!
moto reza
March 1st, 2009 11:01 amthanks very good
Burçlar
March 15th, 2009 12:13 am“Macalicious” is amazing blog design.
wordpress theme
March 15th, 2009 11:20 amGood selection :)
duke
April 3rd, 2009 11:37 pmVery good collection.
duke
LInk
solexy
April 20th, 2009 8:27 pmgreat list, thx
gonetil
May 10th, 2009 6:55 amI think Gisele Jaquenod’s blog is just great :D
Pyboadeonmemo
June 3rd, 2009 8:31 pmSweet blog. I never know what I am going to come across next. I think you should do more posting as you have some pretty intelligent stuff to say.
I’ll be watching you . :)
frank
June 4th, 2009 8:08 pmvery creative people, lots of inspiration!!
Mario Xiao
June 9th, 2009 3:27 amcool! Very inspiring design