The death of the boring blog post?
Let’s face it: the classic blog post is boring.
Barring the text and images, each one generally has the exact same layout. We see little originality from one post to the next. Of course, consistency and branding are extremely important to consider when designing a website or blog, but what about individuality? Does a blog post about kittens deserve the same layout as one about CSS hacks?
Too Easy?
Because installing a WordPress theme is so easy, anyone can have a blog up and running in minutes. While this is great, and we now have a wealth of blogs on countless topics, perhaps it’s too easy? Just thinking about the endless hours of effort that a print designer puts into creating the custom layout of a magazine article makes one respect the finished product so much more.
A few individuals out there, though, are really breaking the mold of the blogosphere.
These guys aren’t using standard WordPress themes or cutting corners to make their lives easier. Rather, they are challenging themselves and producing some fantastic content.
Pushing yourself to create original layouts and designs customized to the content of each post is a fascinating and entertaining way to build a blog.
But why has this trend of melding blog post and magazine article, the “blogazine,” not caught on with the masses?
The <cringe>Trend</cringe> with a difference
Hearing the word “trend” makes us designers shudder because we picture overused glossy buttons, drop-shadows and reflections. But the blogazine trend could be unlike other trends for a few special reasons. Designing a creative layout for each new blog post, based on the content itself, requires skill, patience, dedication to the content and, most of all, effort on the part of the designer!
Let’s now look at three people who exhibit all four qualities:
The Pioneers
Jason Santa Maria
is one of the early innovators of this style of blogging and has been creating custom blog post designs since June 2008. With a background in print design, Jason had a vision to create a blog more in the style of a magazine, rather than obey the established rules of blog design.
While, yes, this is a redesign of sorts, I consider it much more a rethinking.
~ Jason Santa Maria
Jason’s blog posts are fascinating and cover a wide range of topics, including design, typography, books, photography and film. The differences in the designs are sometimes just subtle changes in background or typography, but each conveys an entirely distinct message that it couldn’t if it was uniform with the rest.
Sometimes the changes are radical, but every one still has an element of “Jason-ness.” The header and footer are usually consistent, but even without them, you can still tell a Jason Santa Maria post from a quick glace.
We’ve made so many advancements in how we publish content that we haven’t looked back to what it is we’re actually creating. Many of us see the clear separation between things like print design and web design, but I’ve really been questioning the reality of why things are this way.
~ Jason Santa Maria
We Web designers don’t want to be regarded as lazy. Do we?
We have some of the
most creative and inspiring designers
in our profession, so why don’t we show our true potential in our blog articles?
Dustin Curtis
got a lot of publicity with his open letter to American Airlines, in which he suggests a dramatic redesign and rethinking of its online customer experience. The articles on Dustin’s blog are incredibly fascinating, and this user experience designer has clearly put serious thought into each one.
I got the chance to speak with Dustin about his work:
What prompted you to create a “blogazine” instead of a traditional blog?
I’m never satisfied with my work. Invariably, two weeks after finishing a design, I feel like I can do better. When I originally tried to design my blog, I kept finishing a design, hating it and starting over. This happened ten or twelve times until I finally gave up. Eventually, I realized that each post could stand on its own and be its own design that fit the content. Despite the holdbacks of HTML and CSS, it has worked much better than I had even anticipated.
Does having a blogazine really boost your creativity when it comes to creating a post?
The blogazine style does seem to boost creativity, and by a huge amount. I feel an intense amount of freedom when I’m not constrained by the box of a pre-formed design. I can open Photoshop and use it as a word processor with design functionality. The design really does complement — and become — the content, because they are built simultaneously, without regard for any of the other stuff on the website.
I feel an intense amount of freedom when I’m not constrained by the box of pre-formed design.
Where do you get your inspiration for your blog articles?
I get inspiration from everywhere. I’m fascinated by medicine and the human brain. So many of my articles center on interesting things that I’ve learned while studying neuroscience. Sometimes I’ll start with a single word, like “sleep,” and develop it into a whole article as I research the fringes of the field. There’s really no set source of inspiration.
Advantages?
Disadvantages?
The main advantage is one I didn’t anticipate. Doing a blogazine article requires a lot more work than a traditional blog post, and that has kept me on my toes; because such a large investment is required, I publish only what I feel are my best articles.
The biggest disadvantage is that CSS and HTML are terrible technologies that weren’t designed for page layout. They were designed for structured content presentation, like for a newspaper, where all the elements throughout the website are the same and are re-used. But I’m trying to make a magazine, where the content and presentation are inextricably mixed and unique. The way presentation CSS is supposed to be decoupled from the content HTML is totally counter to the mission I am trying to accomplish, and it makes coding the articles frustrating, messy and time-consuming.
This seems to keep the quality fairly high. I start four or five articles for every one I publish. If I had a normal blog, that wouldn’t be the case — the other four articles would be published too, even though they wouldn’t be as good as the ones I do end up publishing.
My solution to this problem has basically been to ignore convention and use inline styling for most of the presentation code and extract the website-wide presentation layer into a separate CSS document. This takes forever and is not ideal. To put it lightly, I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with CSS.
What if a print magazine
used the same template for every article?
It would be pretty boring, no?
Gregory Wood
is a website designer at Erskine Design and has created his website as an experiment in art direction. Not allowing himself to use the same old templates, Greg has created a fascinating website, with custom designs for each blog post.
Here’s what Greg had to say when I spoke with him:
What prompted you to create a blogazine instead of a traditional blog?
Well, I’ve had a blog for ages and have always been bad at keeping it regularly updated, until I custom-designed a few of the posts sometime last year. I generally hate writing about Web-related stuff (I find it all a little boring), and I love designing, so I wrote about what I wanted (music and zombies) and designed each post around the content, although still housed in my old blog layout. The reception to the posts was really nice, and I enjoyed creating them, so for my latest website I set out to cater to that same audience and keep myself happily occupied at the same time.
Does having a blogazine really boost your creativity when it comes to creating a post?
I wouldn’t say it boosts my creativity; the website is more of an outlet for it. Despite spending all week being creative at Erskine Design, it’s still quite liberating to design whatever you want, however you want, with no external influence.
Because it’s all nicely designed, readers are drawn in and end up reading more than one post.
Where do you get your inspiration for your blog articles?
Usually I think of my best ideas when cycling or sitting on a tram or bus. It’s been a big thing on the Web over the years, where you get your inspiration from, and I’ve never really understood it. I think that looking at other people’s work all the time for inspiration is massively constricting. I find staring out a window for a while usually helps.
Advantages?
Disadvantages?
The obvious advantage is that it looks better. But the content is infinitely more captivating as well. I’m not a great writer, and I probably write a lot of bullshit, but because it’s all nicely designed, readers are drawn in and end up reading more than one post. It’s also very fun to create and helps me grow as a designer.
I guess some would say the time factor is a disadvantage, but if you love doing something, spending a lot of time doing it is justified.
I can’t think of any disadvantages.
The Microblogging Revolution
Twitter, Posterous, Flickr, Facebook, the iPhone and countless other services make it incredibly easy for us to instantly post short musings, photos, video, thoughts and creations, which in turn has created a big gap between the micro post and the macro post.
Time for the macro post to shine
Longer blog posts with valuable content might not get the recognition they deserve, because the 140-character mindset turns people off of reading several pages of text. One way to combat this and make your content more appealing is by creatively altering the layout, using the blogazine technique.
Bridging the gap
We don’t know exactly where the world of blogging is headed in the next few years, but the increase in micro-blogging will definitely be a strong influence. Shorter attention spans call for drastic changes to the length of blog posts. Blogazines could cater to a generation accustomed to the longer articles of newspapers and magazines, becoming a bridge between the traditional article and the TwitPic.
Forces you to think more creatively
Slipping into the habit of typing up your thoughts and clicking “Post,” without thinking about the layout of each article, is easy. By taking a little extra time for the art of blogging, your creativity will increase with your efforts.
Something different and exciting for your readers
If .Net or Computer Arts printed every article with the same layout, every month, would you still subscribe? Your readers would more likely return for new articles if they anticipate something new and rewarding.
Reduces the number of short simple posts
Your blog posts will have much more weight if you take the time to create a full article, rather than knock of a rushed post.
Makes wordy posts more readable
If all you have is text, text, text, then people will be less likely to read it. Put a little effort into styling the content, and your post will become much more readable.
It takes serious effort
Hand-crafting each blog post won’t be easy, but the rewards will be well worth it.
You need CSS and HTML experience
Anyone can download a WordPress theme and merrily post an article. But building a custom layout requires some experience with CSS and HTML.
Inconsistency
The layout of your blog will change dramatically from post to post and, if not done right, may strike your readers as being awkwardly inconsistent. Just look at Jason Santa Maria’s work. Every post is radically different for a reason, but a consistent vein runs through the posts.
No print layout experience
Because this style borrows many elements from print design, anyone who has worked only in Web design may find it difficult to change their way of thinking. Rules of typography and white space, for example, may throw you off. But practice makes perfect, and an endless supply of inspiration can be found in creative magazines.
Obviously this style isn’t suitable for every website. It wouldn’t be practical for blogs that pump out three or four articles a day, but certain types of websites could benefit from it especially.
Portfolios
We have a habit of following trends very easily, especially in our portfolios. Instead of following the tired old practice of positioning screenshots of your work in a nice grid one after the other, why not use the blogazine technique and design a fresh page for each project according to the subject, client and color scheme?
Online Shops
Many online shops suffer from a certain blandness, following the pattern of: thumbnail grid, name, short description and then pagination.
This layout may be good for usability, but there is a middle ground between scannability and visual appeal.
The design changes do not have to be dramatic. In fact, drastically changing the layout would not be advisable for online stores.
But perhaps even subtle changes to design elements could give your online shop the distinction that makes it more noticeable?
CSS Galleries
A new CSS gallery seems to pop up every day, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between all of them. While some of the higher-profile examples like SiteInspire are fantastic for gaining inspiration, the constant influx of CSS galleries makes the inclusion of your own design in one of them somewhat less of an achievement.
It would be interesting to see a really high-class CSS gallery adopt the blogazine technique, with a custom page made for each worthy website, using large high-quality images instead of the typical screenshots.
The websites in a CSS gallery are not all about the same topic and do not have the same style or same content, so why should they receive the same treatment and same type of screenshot?
Merely for consistency?
Think about a painting that is worthy of being displayed in an art gallery. Should it be given the same treatment, cut to the same size, positioned the same way? Why do we treat gallery-worthy websites this way, then?
Quiet Blogs
Bloggers often lack the motivation to keep their blog running. Many of them feel they have to keep it fresh by updating it every day, and failing to meet their own expectations results in both frustration and a neglected blog.
Updating a blog daily isn’t ideal, and more often than not…
seven half-hearted articles a week does not equal one very polished, interesting article.
RSS readers are jam-packed with articles every day, and chances are, the articles that don’t get your full attention will get lost in the crowd. Keep your short musings and thoughts for Posterous and Twitter, and spend some real time hand-crafting well-thought-out articles. You’ll satisfy both yourself and your readers.
Look at Jason, Dustin and Greg. They do not blog that often: sometimes once a week, sometimes once a month. But the quality is always stellar.
You have endless possibilities to be more creative with your blog. Why stay tied down to one theme and one layout when you can experiment with your skills and push your creativity to its limit with a blogazine? With the Internet suffocating with blogs, people have developed incredibly short attention spans, and they probably won’t stop for your content if you have “just another blog.”
Why not throw away the blogging rule book and make your articles stand out from the crowd?
- Jason Santa Maria talks about his rethinking
- Jack Cheng’s blogazine
- WordPress Art Direction Plugin
- ‘You’re killing Me Zappos’ by Metalabdesign
- WordPress Post Styling Plugin
- The Life of Dustin Curtis
- WordPress Designate Plugin
- Jason Santa Maria: The Influence of Print Design
- Shaun Inman’s Photostream
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Randal Blanchette
February 25th, 2010 10:25 amGah! Typos city, sorry. It is still relevant though ;) Just a little hard on the eyes. Maybe make a spell checker for comments plugin? Might be worth a fortune to the spelling challenged… TM applies…lol. Kidding. Unless it makes money then I want at least a shout out :)
Sam Hearn
March 4th, 2010 5:08 pmIt’s a really interesting read, and although pretty hard to read physically on the eyes, it is also a pleasure in the same way you explore a print article, so on that level it works. Nice work.
From my point of view, the massive flaw in the theory and the reason it will not catch on (until of course some kind of open source, icon/design element library, drag and drop, layout, CMS, blog plugin comes out some day…which I’m sure it will) is due to simple ‘practical’ and ‘financial’ reasons.
1. Most websites follow strict template conformity to ensure users don’t mess up your designs. Blogazines (for all but a handful of designers and rich people with time/money to burn) are just not a viable option. We produce tons of websites for clients and as a digital project/account manager, I cannot think of one who would be able to lay one of these out or even brief someone to produce it….or if they could push out a brief…by the time you had finished waiting for the design to come back the article would be dated and defeat the object of blogging new/live content.
2. You would need to have an in-house designer working all the time to keep up with a regular blogger…..we have a few of those, and I would still not want to allocate their time to laying out beautiful blogs all day every day to keep up with my ramblings….no matter how nice they look.
NOTE: It was interesting that after years of hearing that print designers could not always transfer their skills to web…that this brings it all back around, and in fact you would probably need some print experience to get this style right. That would certainly be inspiring to lots of print designers I know.
Even with all that said, I do agree that there is certainly a target style of website which could comfortably house Blogazines, music and film sites, magazine sites, agencies, freelance designers etc. and definitely think that it makes the web a more interesting a colourful place to explore….and debate…which is always good.
dave morello
March 10th, 2010 10:02 amYes! Great job! You resume my passion to do some work! so inspiring.
designebookcover
March 14th, 2010 5:19 amamazing job man
Gunther
March 14th, 2010 5:43 amYou know what? You got me thinking because this approach might be the exact way to stand out of the crowd. The only problem is of course the fact you basically need a new design for each single post and then code it.
The amount of time would be epic. What am I talking about: it would be big!!!
At least for me.
Slim
April 4th, 2010 11:06 amAs a reader, If I have to scroll a webpage forever, I’ll bail from your site!
Nobody likes a tiny scrollbar, in their browser, 8P
Joel Glovier
April 9th, 2010 1:20 pmThat’s only because “your site” isn’t giving you content that is interesting enough. When it is, scrolling is like an adventure. “What happens when I go further…?!?”
Joel Glovier
April 9th, 2010 1:18 pmAll I have to say is – pfshhhhhhh!! This is the future of the web. Do you want to know how print could ever disappear? It’s when designers and publishers begin to look at the web as an incredibly flexible, powerful and portable medium for publishing.
The blogazine trend as described right here is an obvious step in that direction. Well, that, the iPad, and fiber.
HoopBot
October 2nd, 2010 2:44 pmMy only criticism is the fuzzy white pixels above y’all heads in the bottom right … other than that, this is fantastic!
Lastac
October 10th, 2010 8:57 amThis is great article. I have never thought that this could be a way to make my articles more interesting.
Noah
October 23rd, 2010 3:18 amLove what you said about html and css being so time consuming, when it come to real creativity html and css do my head in, I wish we could ditch them both and move on.
Boring You
November 11th, 2010 7:45 pmFor a really boring site, check out thissiteisboringdontcomehere.com
Trains to kanyakumari
November 12th, 2010 4:31 ami know the full concept of html it is very useful when compared to css.
Alan
December 20th, 2010 6:26 amUnfortunately, good design takes time, and it feels like you guys rushed through this one.
redhy
December 22nd, 2010 5:38 pmnice blog ,,awesome ,,..hope i’ll get a lot of information on your site..
regards
jitu
January 18th, 2011 1:28 amTameBeast
Yes, it’s outsourcing mostly, apparently, to India which leads me to judge anyone can do it since all you hump to tally is a drill in proximity of you to construe any ergodic page you turn to and part utter the Side module (i.e. Yes, No, Can I Do Anything Else For You Today?, etc. etc.)
_____________
jitu
BPO Work
BPO Work
March 31st, 2011 11:00 ami know the full concept of html it is very useful when compared to css.
—————————————
amiya
BPO Work
March 31st, 2011 11:10 amYes, it’s outsourcing mostly, apparently, to India which leads me to judge anyone can do it since all you hump to tally is a drill in proximity of you to construe any ergodic page you turn to and part utter the Side module (i.e. Yes, No, Can I Do Anything Else For You Today?, etc. etc.)
_____________
rajkumar
BPO Work
April 1st, 2011 8:49 amYes, it’s outsourcing mostly, apparently, to India which leads me to judge anyone can do it since all you hump to tally is a drill in proximity of you to construe any ergodic page you turn to and part utter the Side module (i.e. Yes, No, Can I Do Anything Else For You Today?, etc. etc
______________________
rajkumar
BPO Work
April 13th, 2011 9:15 amYes, it’s outsourcing mostly, seemingly, to India which leads me to decide anyone can do it since all you hump to invoice is a read in closeness of you to construe any ergodic industrialist you transmit to and share emit the Choose power (i.e. Yes, No, Can I Do Anything Else For You Today?, etc. etc
_____________________
manoj
sky520
April 14th, 2011 4:43 pmIt is a nice blog,I like it .
Miroslav Svestka
April 20th, 2011 10:43 amCreative way in jogging minds !
Your graphics are inspiring & makes reading your good points so much STRONGER …
Thanks,
Miroslav Svestka
President & CEP
Printing Industry Exchange
Sam awsen
April 29th, 2011 12:37 amThis is the most informed writing I’ve ever seen on this subject
assadotcom
June 19th, 2011 5:11 amLike This ^_^
Longfield
June 23rd, 2011 10:42 pmi sure this the future blog post.. i’ve made it in blogger machine last month .. where’s the like button for my comment?? :D
arrortibe
June 26th, 2011 1:37 pmNice post ! I will save it in my favorites. thxx
M. Mueller
June 30th, 2011 12:33 pmYep, this post is really not bad.
P.S. I propose to resume the old design of the site. Black theme suxx! IMHO
Viela Recordð
July 12th, 2011 9:23 amHey guys,
Claudio
September 23rd, 2011 10:39 amThe ideas posited in the article *might* be interesting for those able to see this page. I could only manage to read about 10% of the content here, thanks to your choice of #333333 on black. Form over function, innit?
Michael Martine
October 4th, 2011 8:43 pmThere’s some food for thought here for sure.
But… a blog post that basically reads like a crappy infographic, 90% of the comments here are worthless GARBAGE and your comment form is now broken in Chrome.
The future of blogging? God, I hope not.
Albert
October 8th, 2011 1:19 pmPerhaps you have considered putting extra videos for your blog articles to keep your readers more interested? I mean I just read during the entire article of yours and it was very fine but because I’m really a visual learner,I discovered that to become more valuable. Just my my idea, Good luck