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50 Beautiful and Creative Blog Designs
The most recent collection of creative blog designs was featured here on Smashing Magazine back in July. Only three months have passed and we’ve got a new dose of inspiration for you. Beautiful and sophisticated designs are constantly appearing on the Web; creative activity is in non-stop mode, despite global economic shocks and unfortunate events; and this is surely a positive sign.
Today, we showcase 50 fresh, beautiful, inventive and, hopefully, inspiring blog designs. The variety of styles represented in this collection is considerable, so everyone will be able to find a tasty piece of inspiration for their own creative aspirations. Notice that every screenshot is clickable and leads to the website itself.
[By the way, did you know there is a brand new Smashing Wordpress Book? Push WordPress past its limits!]
Beautiful and Creative Blog Designs
Jason Gray Music
Jason Gray’s blog was initially WordPress-based, but it now has a beautiful and original Flash appearance that we just couldn’t pass up.
The Pixel Blog
This exquisite blog belongs to a Web design and marketing company called The Pixel. Amazing graphics in the header and footer, along with a giant tree (the branches of which separate the posts), make this design pure eye-candy.
Sushi & Robots
Sushi & Robots is the journal and portfolio of Jina Bolton, a San Francisco-based designer, developer and author. If you’re looking for creative inspiration, this website is definitely a master class.
WorkAwesome
The neat desktop-themed design of WorkAwesome’s blog is definitely worth your attention.
Abduzeedo
Abduzeedo, which is bookmarked by every Web design fan, was recently redesigned. The highlights are considerably enhanced usability and unique post teasers.
Point & Anchor
It’s all about the lines here. Point & Anchor’s blog design is quite engaging.
Trent Walton
Neatly combining a few uncomplicated code hooks, the founder of Paravel Web design agency, Trent Walton, has created an original, attractive blog. The presentation of each individual post and the overall layout of the blog are remarkable indeed.
Fudge
The website of digital studio Fudge is currently under construction. Still, the way it has designed its latest news log is worth mentioning here. Photoshop interface imitating design is a neat idea. Plus, the navigation is a treat for the eye.
Design Intellection
This simple yet admirable blog design is achieved using HTML 5 markup. The dotted typography for post numbers is a nice touch.
Biggest Apple
The pure style of Biggest Apple’s website features a gorgeous sketch in the header and some pretty icons all around.
LaMalla.cl (Chile)
This amazing blog belongs to a small community of creative people, a space to share links to inspirational info from all over the globe. A grayscale geometrical background and cool jQuery effects make our exploration of this website a really enjoyable experience.
Contrast
A clean style, nifty typography and hover effects make for a great blog design. Excellent work by Contrast, a Web apps development crew from Ireland.
Demain J’arrête (France)
This classy comic strip is available in French only, but the blog’s design won’t leave you cold.
Fran Fernández
The blog of Spanish singer Fran Fernández features an expressive and slightly careless-looking graphic design, which reflects the passion of the musician best.
Stéréosuper (France)
Stéréosuper is a successful duo of creative folks working in the field of multimedia. Boris and Jean-Francois are keen on karate: perhaps this explains the imaginative fighting characters in their design. The dark color scheme and hatched elements are quite appealing, too.
Music City Unsigned
This cute blog belongs to the Nashville community of emerging artists. Although it is Flash-based, you won’t have any problems with accessibility or navigation here.
Tal & Acacia
Unpretentious beauty: this is how we would describe this design. Pastel-themed graphics give it a special flavor.
Denis Chandler’s Blog (Another Blog About Stuff)
The style of this blog is fairly conventional, but look at the header! This bit of spice elevates the otherwise formal design, bringing in some splash.
Mulletized
This blog of Cape Town Web designer Brendon Grobler features an offbeat layout and great use of typography. This is what Brendon says about his blog redesign: “I tried to create something less “bloggy” and more graphic, focusing strongly on typography (which is one of my great design loves) and imagery.” The result is impressive, wouldn’t you agree?
M1K3
This blog (belonging to UI designer and developer Michael Dick) is an example of an excellent dark design.
Mark Forrester
This awesome blog-styled website is a creative outlet for Mark Forrester, a “half-baked” (his words) English/South African freelance designer and entrepreneur. The journal is easy and pleasant to navigate, and the cartoon illustrations in the header and footer are incredible. (They were designed by Cape Town-based illustrator and cartoonist Alex Latimer).
Jord & Chan
This nice duo-themed layout presents two strips of content on the same page, a very original idea. The smooth background texture adds more charm to the design.
Cog’Nition
This blog has a lovely surprise: you can change the design’s theme, choosing from two amusing cartoon-style backgrounds.
JonahL
Jonah Levine’s blog follows simplicity and a pure style. An attractive dark design, and a good use of lines.
Marcel Müller blog
Marcel Müller’s blog has a stylish, corporate look. Another good example of precise, minimalist design.
TrippingWords
This really is something striking. Everything here, from the header to the footer, is extraordinary and hyper-creative.
Related Articles
- Corporate Blog Design: Trends And Examples
- 50 New Beautiful Blog Designs
- Showcase Of Elegant And Original Blog Designs
(al)
Julia May is a freelance writer now working with FlashMint, the top-class provider of Flash websites.
(30 votes, average: 4.37 out of 5)
Loading ...- 88 Comments
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November 3rd, 2009 1:45 pmAmazing where we are today in web-design! I just had one of my first web site design books in my hands today – David Siegel’s “Creating Killer Websites” from 1998. It’s really impressive what happened in the meantime if you compare the killer sites from then to what we se here and every day online. Great collection.
- 3November 3rd, 2009 1:50 pm
One day I’ll make it on to one of these lists… :)
Some very nice designs on that list. Its good to see how some of these have matured from your post on blog designs from ages ago. And just bookmarked a few I’ve never seen before.
- 4November 3rd, 2009 1:55 pm
wow. creative indeed!
- 5November 3rd, 2009 2:00 pm
Sweet, thanks for the collection :)
- 6November 3rd, 2009 2:10 pm
Woah! Some really awesome blog designs here. I just started my blog recently as well, but these designs are stunning!
Tumble and the Pixel Blog are my favorites.
- 7November 3rd, 2009 2:13 pm
I am personally tired of desktop themed design. There was a blog posting recently about some of the worst trends of web design and that was one of them. I have to agree with them.
- 8November 3rd, 2009 2:18 pm
nice selection. a few tremendous designs and like Dan said before “One day I’ll make it on to one of these lists… :)”
Greetz!
- 9November 3rd, 2009 2:33 pm
Thanks for this great inspiration piece. Quite a wide variety of designs and choices the designers used. Personally, I prefer some of the cleaner, “white” designs like those of “The Swish Life” and “Design Intellection.” However, the others are still great designs.
- 10November 3rd, 2009 2:48 pm
Maybe one day I will be there too… :D great collection! Thanks!
- 11November 3rd, 2009 2:51 pm
Great collection, a good way to start a creative day!
- 12November 3rd, 2009 2:54 pm
Thanks for featuring us, and for the kind words.
- 13November 3rd, 2009 2:58 pm
Awesome inspirations. I love the windmill. The variety of blog concept was inspiring!
- 14November 3rd, 2009 3:13 pm
Amazing blogs. Jason Santa Maria’s blog is really one of a kind.
- 15November 3rd, 2009 3:20 pm
Some fantastic looking blogs there. I hope to see mine there one day :-) – when it’s finished maybe!!!
- 16November 3rd, 2009 4:35 pm
I love the cartoon strip-like Demain J’arrête (France) blog design. I think it’s a brilliant idea :)
Nice round up btw! - 17November 3rd, 2009 4:40 pm
Great list ;-)
My favourite was Mark Boulton’s super simple design.
- 18November 3rd, 2009 5:27 pm
Inspirational. Really nice collection … now i know just how good MY blog has to be to make it on the list .. i better get to work :)
- 19November 3rd, 2009 5:56 pm
Hi,
Firstly I would like to say a big thanks for being listed on your top 50 Blog Designs.
We spent a long time developing the look for our new site and was really interesting as the artwork we used was intended for a 3D Flash site which we will be launching in the coming months. We were so impressed by what our artist did that we wanted to use it and thus the blog was born to show traditional sketch artwork.
Thanks once again!!!
- 20November 3rd, 2009 7:26 pm
Superb collection, thanks!
- 21November 3rd, 2009 7:50 pm
i wonder when is the day that i’ll make it in this list.. hahaha
anyway, ctrl-d > enter. better to bookmark than never. XD - 22November 3rd, 2009 8:28 pm
Thanks for featuring UX Booth! My favorites are easily: http://demainjarrete.stpo.fr/ and http://www.newtoyork.com/
-Andrew
- 23November 3rd, 2009 9:21 pm
Great post, some of these are truly inspiring. Thx
- 24November 3rd, 2009 9:58 pm
I liked the design of `The Pixel Blog`, I wonder how do these designer get such a beautiful and creative designs ? Any ideas ?
- 25November 3rd, 2009 10:19 pm
Awesome blog designs.Great collection.
- 26November 3rd, 2009 10:39 pm
grt post…i love smashing magazine…i gettin updated by U guys…
- 27November 3rd, 2009 11:15 pm
A few of them are very bad. Can’t understand what they are searching in a “beautiful blog design” Post…
- 28November 3rd, 2009 11:45 pm
all creative designs for better inspirations, i really like and getting ideas as well. thanks
- 29November 3rd, 2009 11:50 pm
Really great collection of designs…very much inspirative….
- 30November 3rd, 2009 11:52 pm
Why I am not so creative? ** Thanks for that!
- 31November 4th, 2009 12:16 am
Really beautiful blogs, and so many I haven’t seen before… where do you find them all?
Maybe one day I’ll be in such a list, too…
- 32November 4th, 2009 12:23 am
So Great, your blog is place that I found many things about graphics. Thank you so much.
- 33November 4th, 2009 12:30 am
Love the 30 Minutes a Day design! Great collection!
- 34November 4th, 2009 12:35 am
It’s always funny to see the coffee at the blogs :) I think it apperas in just one design but it’s great. Like standard.
- 35November 4th, 2009 1:07 am
These are awesome…
- 36November 4th, 2009 1:18 am
These are all fantastic looking, as always. But content is often over-looked by designers – meaning you log onto their site, admire the graphics and leave.
However some of these go beyond that, an example being Jack Cheng’s 30min post. Now that sounds and looks good. - 37November 4th, 2009 1:47 am
What I like most is that when you think you have seen all there is something that changes your mind. Awesome designs!
- 38November 4th, 2009 1:59 am
50 or 60? I didn’t count
- 39November 4th, 2009 2:17 am
Great list. thx.
I like to see gaming / game sites design list too :)
- 40November 4th, 2009 3:03 am
I wonder, when SM will consider http://10words.richpurple.com/ as a creative blog. OR at least proivde the feedback on the same.
BTW, nice post.
- 41November 4th, 2009 3:54 am
Thanks a lot for including us! We really can’t believe it! :-DD
- 42November 4th, 2009 4:24 am
Wow, thanks a lot for the feature – its an honor for me that you liked my humble blog, and also to be among those amazing blogs! :-)
- 43November 4th, 2009 5:39 am
To be honest im really bored to watch the same sites over and over again …
- 44November 4th, 2009 6:14 am
How you can look at these and be bored is beyond me.
I see pure talent and dedication.
- 45November 4th, 2009 6:31 am
I dont say they are not nice , but i see them in almost every article… its boring already
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- 46November 4th, 2009 11:14 pm
I understand, I feel the same with you. I am bored these site too. many sites have seen many times. and I really think there are more delicious site there.
- 44
- 47November 4th, 2009 5:42 am
Enormously huge headers seems to be commonplace nowadays. I personally dislike this trend as they take up too much screen real estate.
Netbooks have very low resolutions in height (600 pixels) and many of these designs will become cropped on a netbook, and that does not look very good.
Make another minimalist blog list sometime! :3
- 48November 4th, 2009 5:45 am
hi
julia,Thank you very much for this post. I am from india and here web design is far behind than the current design trend. But this will surely push me to discover some unique style in web disign.
- 49November 4th, 2009 6:37 am
Sushi and Robots looks a lot like Jim Mahfood, the comic book artist’s style. I wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t some kind of coincidence. He lives in LA though.
- 50November 4th, 2009 6:44 am
Awesome works. Some of them really inspiring, but other are not some much to take a look.
- 51November 4th, 2009 6:59 am
wow nice collection of new creative blog websites ill bookmark it
- 52November 4th, 2009 8:39 am
Fudge is my favorite.
- 53November 4th, 2009 8:59 am
Great post! I love to see new blog designs. Jason Gray’s blog is awesome.
- 54November 4th, 2009 9:26 am
Great overview of lots of different feels.
- 55November 4th, 2009 9:34 am
Thanks for the mention (once again =] ) and, well, sorry for my French…
- 56November 4th, 2009 10:06 am
Cool collection. “The Pixel Blog”-Design is really awesome.
- 57November 4th, 2009 10:50 am
every time i see good looking sites, i feel like i want to redo mine. I just finished it two months ago. HA. Good post.
- 58November 4th, 2009 11:36 am
Some very inspiring blogs! The gang at One by Four are very honored and pleased to be included!
- 59November 4th, 2009 12:01 pm
Hi guys! Thank for the positive feedback. I really enjoyed working on this list and I’m glad you share my views.
Kamal, thank you for the suggestion, somehow I’ve missed this beautiful blog this time, but I’ve bookmarked it for the future projects.
Aditya, like you, I’m inspired by this beautiful, creative and elegant designs. Good luck in your aspirations! ;)
Andre, thanks for your note. Many websites from this list are not heavy on graphics and visualizations, but they do provide remarkable usability, simplicity and sense of style and are worth mentioning here.
- 60November 4th, 2009 12:48 pm
I really liked Jason Gray’s blog; it is very different and catches one’s eye. I also really liked Pixel’s look; it is very magical and cartoonish looking!
- 61November 4th, 2009 3:33 pm
Am I the only one that finds the last one really ugly?
- 62November 4th, 2009 3:58 pm
I adore the hand-drawn structure of Demain J’arrête (France). What a perfect online advertisement for his cartooning skills!
- 63November 4th, 2009 4:15 pm
I’m sorry, but I think this was really quite a boring post. I’m sure every designer featured here spent a lot of time on their respective sites, but I don’t see anything special about them, nor make me jump out of my seat and go design something. Sorry.
- 64November 4th, 2009 4:24 pm
Hi.
Thanks for an inspirational post! I’m currently working on my blog and I want it to be inspired by the Norwegian nature as I am a native Norwegian designer. My point is; You really gave me inspiration by this post!
Thanks alot! :)
- 65November 4th, 2009 4:25 pm
Paul: It’s not ugly. It’s one of a kind. ;-)
- 66November 4th, 2009 5:22 pm
Nice Collection!!
- 67November 4th, 2009 10:54 pm
Lets put some textures and all the world will call us “PRO!” and “creative” …
- 68November 5th, 2009 12:31 am
As I can’t see the comments (PE please!), likely someone has already said this, but what I noticed about many (most?) of these designs is a technique, I don’t know the name, where basically header, content area and footer are wrapped in larger, min-width boxes, with absolutely-positioned images pulled off to the right and left, leaving those with smaller screens scrollbars who only show the content of the site (instead of starting at the true far left, the scrollbar starts at the content-left), which is pretty cool. Though when my screen isn’t big enough I have to dig the images out of source to see them : ) Some of these guys must have 27″ screens!
Am I just now seeing this everywhere, did it creep up on me, or is this some sort of new trend? Anyway, I do think it’s neat for some of the more art-oriented sites, like Pixel blog, who reminded me a lot of meomi.com, which is also a giant tree filled with goodies. - 69November 5th, 2009 2:23 am
#2 is the best out of all of these
- 70November 5th, 2009 3:16 am
I love Fudge. Interesting use of typography.
- 71November 5th, 2009 6:07 am
Great List! I haven’t seen some of these before. Thanks for the list.
- 72November 5th, 2009 6:45 am
Great list and I’m pretty honoured to have my site Tripping Words on the list as well. So thanks so much for that. My personal favourite is Mark Forrester’s work. He is simply quite brilliant!
- 73November 5th, 2009 7:49 am
Nice! Glad to see Fudge on the list.
- 74November 5th, 2009 11:36 am
Pretty
- 75November 5th, 2009 3:21 pm
It is amazing to see how many inspirators are out there =)
- 76November 6th, 2009 1:49 am
Wow … very beautiful designs …. thz
(www.thungechinmyar.co.cc) - 77November 6th, 2009 3:30 am
Love Mark Forresters design above. Its really cool!
Nice to see some interesting designs with black backgrounds too. its difficult to find good examples with black backgrounds, so well done!
Have to say though I’m getting pretty sick of seeing coffee cups on blog themes now. Its getting a little bit boring, unoriginal and certainly doesn’t fit the post title of “creative”.
- 78November 6th, 2009 8:00 am
These are some great designs, but a couple of the strike me as cluttered. Overall, a great list.
- 79November 8th, 2009 2:07 pm
Thanks for the interesting article – I can only wish my blog looked as interesting.
- 80November 9th, 2009 7:27 am
Love SM’s collections for the inspiration inexhaustibility of every post. Inspiration in every post is enough to achieve lot of creative goals. Thanks for such huge and quality posts like this!
- 81November 11th, 2009 3:56 am
Nice list used one as inspiration.
- 82November 12th, 2009 5:24 pm
Inspirational masterpieces! Thank you.
- 83November 16th, 2009 11:50 am
Marcel Muller’s minimalist design combined with corporate flare I felt was really powerful and sleek
- 84November 20th, 2009 10:42 pm
Very Nice….I needed a bit of Inspiration..
- 85December 22nd, 2009 8:06 am
i think the second one is quite good the rest – is like know body is posting them so why not i post them – really bad.
- 86January 6th, 2010 9:01 am
Hi – Great list of super sites. This is not a comment but I couldn’t find an email link to the post’s author Julia May. I’d love for you to take a look at our blog design and possibly include it in a future compilation. http://www.godynamo.com
Thanks and cheers!
Bob Beck
Creative Director
Dynamo - 87January 7th, 2010 8:20 pm
I stumbled upon this site and thought it was beautiful like those listed above.
agith.cerestia.net/
- (: - 88February 7th, 2010 5:27 pm
Wowsa!!!!!
No words to describe the respect for the creative generation of these blog designs! Thank you so much smashing magazine! I also stumbled upon this through google, just now. Thank you once again.
regards.
- 00
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Whoa. Some real great inspiration there! Hoping to come up with a great design for my blog as well :)