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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1
Unreadable grey on black text. div class ‘pioneers_look’ has a problem where the text has popped out of the box. Blockquote from Santa Maria is too wide for the content wrapper. Using latest Chrome on Windows 7, in the year 2013. Your post simply does not work as an example, sorry; I’d rather be able to read the content than experience unique post designs.
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2
The 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?
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3
There’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.
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Logan
November 19th, 2009 6:02 pmThis is a magnificent post.
This has inspired me to go off and do better things now.
I thank you.
Tomakun
November 19th, 2009 6:21 pmVery interesting how different are the reactions about this post. I’m pretty sure it’s also a fight between veteran designers and younger ones. You should definitely add a required entry in that poll that says “please enter your age”.
That Guy John
November 19th, 2009 6:30 pmWell, a big point of “similar” layouts or themes is giving readers a uniformed standard to read blogs in order to avoid confusion. Make it your own, of course, but don’t go as far as to make a reader re-learn how to read or navigate your blog.
People get use to the “way things are”, don’t confuse them.
That Guy John
November 19th, 2009 6:32 pmCase in point for myself.. this post. I read maybe a quarter of the way through it then scrolled to the bottom to leave this comment.
Banhawi
November 19th, 2009 6:32 pmAweesome technique , will use implement soon .
Hello Kitty Junkie
November 19th, 2009 6:34 pmWaaay inspirational! Thank you for that! n_n
Waheed Akhtar
November 19th, 2009 6:46 pmThis post is just amazing and very informative. I loved how it is described to be unique from other blogs. I would give this a try but definitely need enough time for this after 9-6 job :)…. Also showing portfolio according to client or project type is excellent idea. Should implement this and see how it works.
In last bookmarked this for reading it again and getting to know more while implementing.
Waheed Akhtar
November 19th, 2009 6:47 pmAlso I noticed that on homepage of smashingmagazine.com for this this post excerpt, the comments are shown as “0 comments”
George Tucker
November 19th, 2009 7:06 pmExcellent post and some challenging ideas presented here which have me thinking and reassessing how my blog posts are presented.
I get the sense that within all of this heavy design and visual eye candy lies the heart of a deconstructionist (dare I say Situationist). The disjointed but flowing forms used individually (or just two) would allow for the content to come out but the mélange here is fairly hard to follow on my laptop screen, I shudder to think what it looks like on an iPhone.
When I view this on a 24″ or a 16×9 panel it looks fantastic. As someone previously mentioned, the post would look fantastic in print and would be manageable to the eye – I wonder if using a two page at a time ‘magazine’ presentation rather than the vertical format would be beneficial here.
My own posts tend toward the DIY simplicity of print the versions of Fanzines such as Maximum Rock n Roll or (even more so) The Big TakeOver. Stylized elements which threaten to intrude into the text but rarely overlap it, creating a gritty backdrop that does not overpower the content.
Again, thanks for the ideas, provoking presentation and dialog.
petrzalskypeter
February 19th, 2010 12:38 amI’m reading the post on iPhone – I do not see the whole picture, but I truly enjoyed exploring the post even on a small touch screen. I was zooming in and out, moving not only from top to bottom, but also from left to right. I actually like the way how I “touched” the post, not just scrolling it down
For me, it was a new experience, somehow similar to reading a printed magazine. I agree with both sides – but – if we eventually will one day face the death of print newspapers and magazines, this could help
Graphire
November 19th, 2009 7:16 pmAmazing yet controversial post. Now I’m torn between usability and creativity. I’d like to have both though.
That Guy John
November 19th, 2009 7:33 pmI agree with you. Creativity, it is nice. Usuability and readability, not so good.
I myself like to be able to jump to a blog post and skim through it easily before I decide to read it word for word. This technique is not good for readablity, in my opinion.
Amber Wilks
November 19th, 2009 7:20 pmLOVE this! You guys ‘smashed’ it out of the park. What a great read!
Mike Age 30
November 19th, 2009 7:25 pmGreat Job Patty.
It’s disgusting that half these negative comments are from “designe-um- ers?” I’m sure the other half brainwashed web standards whores,and finally the last lot just learning an IE Hack and should be writing their latest critique on rottentomatoes.com or trying to impress that girl on facebook who thinks your an idiot, and the macbook is not getting you laid either.
Rules really?
The only rules should be something serves it’s purpose and bit of common sense when it comes to coding and design. With out further ado way to think inside the box, inside the box, inside the box that innovative people have thrown out and you crawled in.
You should delete any design software you may have because imitators are not needed any more
then a bad case of VD.
And do you think the common user really gives a damn about our “rules” have some sense and realize most people live by “it just works” and some users like something refreshing and I can go into that more
but you might have a stroke.
It’s simple If they like what they are reading they will continue if not they will scroll and leave some thoughtless comment because everyone wants to be right.
I do like this post and I do Like the direction it can lead more blogs in and it will weed out the weak in the long run by setting up a higher standard and more authentic experience.
…Or we can can stick to same thing because nobody wants to *Gasp* ….
I hope you enjoyed all the bad typos and more I am trying to enjoy my smoke.
That Guy John
November 19th, 2009 7:51 pmI don’t think it really has to do with what or who is wrong or right. ‘Til a true case study is done to see how something like this works for various readers and markets (IMHO) I think the general blog post “standard” should be followed.
I personaly think it looks awesome, but don’t think it really leaves the focus where it should be. Which is on the content. As for design blogs like this, I think this could work well eventually. Allthough (IMHO), blogs should always focus on the textual content.
stan
November 19th, 2009 7:32 pmThank you for the wonderful post I was beginning to thing that the world of blogging was going to suffer from the all the nettuts/themeforest look alikes. this is taking the idea of blogging back a few years with remeniscence of css zen garden (web), and even further back with David Carson (print). Now that css technology is starting to catch up I think we as web designers need to step our game up. Experiment break a few rules, make a few mistakes, create happy accidents. This is not print we are not risking printing budgets… Do it… What’s the worst thing that could happen?
Well done, great article.
Tejendra Shandilya
November 19th, 2009 7:43 pmyou’re ROCK
Gustavo Palma
November 19th, 2009 7:45 pmVery interesting and well executed post. What definitely calls more my attention is the controversy generated around it….for me it looks like a London 2012 syndrome :P … Anyway it seems to be the natural cause of this end of a decade and the evolution of information and how we present it, the search for individuality in a globalist era, etc.. … will work/like for some and not for others… thanks SM
delaorden
November 19th, 2009 8:00 pmwell, this is quite a fresh change in blogging. In think it has given a shake in our way of blogging. Sometimes we don’t realise how boring we are getting until something like this shows up. In my point of view there are some points that can be applied, specifically the new look for each post. This could be done with a little balance…all in all, most of bloggers out there don’t know much about html and css stuff.
Very innovating . Congrats !
Question Guy
November 19th, 2009 8:03 pmI would really like to see an article that explain how to do that with a WordPress blog for example. How can you achieve to have every articles to look so different?
Adrian L.
November 27th, 2009 7:15 amI don’t know about WordPress, but this would be pretty simple with Textpattern. One would just override the standard article form on a per-article basis.
Seth Alling
November 19th, 2009 8:09 pmPersonally, I think it’s a great idea to design for web in the print style. I have been wanting to do this with my own stuff, but I just never seem to have the time. I am a print designer turned web, meaning I always want to incorporate those elements, but never seem to be able to time-wise.
I am still just using some theme I found on WordPress. My goal though, is to take the proper time and redesign my website so that is functioning properly. After that I hope to design in the blogazine style, but not to the point where it’s unreadable. This way I’ll be able to show my creativity in a stronger light and can improve my css skills as well.
Chilly_Devil
November 19th, 2009 8:31 pmEven if the idea is nice, by the time I reached to the bottom of the article I had a headache! It is too long, even if it is good content and design et al. Jumping from black to white background makes a horrible impact on peoples’ minds.
anjhero
November 19th, 2009 8:38 pmnow this seems to b a trend setter/breaker :D .. quite an interesting article .. n the layout: iLikes ;)
chesham
November 19th, 2009 8:46 pmI stumbled onto Dustin Curtis a few months ago and was impressed. The quality of the articles is what I like most, and I will actually go to his site from my rss feed to see it. Thanks for all the info, I’ll have to check out the other sites that are doing this.
Mike
November 19th, 2009 8:51 pm@That Guy John
I am on the fence about that reading through various magazines as others half brought up they range in style perhaps some may have issues with the text changed color it must be a link…WTF not a link… Color is also used for emphasis but to a point I agree with you, certain guidelines for links and such should be consistent but bending the rules per project should be a given other wise you are no longer designing but replicating and I think this article raises that point.
Case studies IMO are never accurate unless you poll every single reader old or brand new and don’t forget about the 90% who won’t bother taking part regardless.
Malcolm
November 19th, 2009 9:08 pmThis is FANTASTIC :) :)
Thank you very much Smashing!!
Karl
November 19th, 2009 9:24 pmThis is a great concept. Well written, and thankyou for putting it out there. I think the example sites he talks about (Jason, Greg) are slightly better executed than this post. But this post illustrates the point well.
Clearly this is not practical for a daily blog, but surely we have enough average daily blogs to keep us happy between a few good ones who take this on board and give us something weekly.
Lets hope this sparks a new movement with our online creatives! Lets differentiate ourselves from the template masses. Make the most of your ability to be different.
Steve
November 19th, 2009 9:29 pmGreat article. I’m happy to see someone not spouting rubbish. The web is for whatever you want it to be about. If a blog reads like a magazine reason follows that it will have a similar style of following. Many of the objectors are undoubtedly SEM/SEO drones spitting out formula results and not considering real results which are making meaningful, trusted, and lasting relationships with your audience. Use whatever tools are at your disposal to achieve that and you are going to be successful at what you do. I’m tired of crap with no appeal. Brand association… c’mon! If you can’t remember the company whose site you are visiting by the time you’ve scrolled to the point you can’t see the header, you’ve already failed by being another useless and poorly planned presence on the web. Kudos Smashing magazine. You’ve earned my respect over the past year. Great content, great team of writers and contributors. You’re helping to make the web a better place.
Jan Kenneth Regala
November 19th, 2009 9:47 pmIncredible article! I loved it! I want to start a blog (but for now, my liberties fail me so I might just keep on postponing until the right time comes knocking on my doorstep) and this article pretty much answers the question “how do you make your blog a cut above the rest?”
Innovation nowadays is pretty much the driving force behind every successful project. If you fail to become innovative, then your project might just as well fall into oblivion.
The emergence of this “blogazine” thing however concerns me. What if there would be a time when people would actually prefer digital over print content? Would that spell the doom of the billion-dollar print magazine industry?
Mike D
November 19th, 2009 9:57 pmWonderful post!
I’ve read Smashing a long time now and have never commented before. I was sort of astounded to see the number of posts against it. Its not as many who like it but still, its rather surprising. It led me to finally post my support of an article.
I’ve worked in webdesign for a while now and its upsetting and frustrating when the client undervalues the intelligence of his users. It seems the common law of business is to assume everyone is an idiot and incapable of basic motor functions. I try my best to sneak in changes and try to push things in a new direction, but all too often they will ask me to make something more conservative. Its especially terrible in the corporate environment. I had to get out of there fast!
Nothing worse than getting about 4-5 links of the same layout and asking for a mimic with different colors. Why hire a designer at that point? Why BE a designer at that point? What are you designing?
Well this is long winded enough. I just wanted to say thanks for a wonderful and inspirational post. I loved it and am definitely going to use this as inspiration.
For everyone having issues incorporating this into wordpress.. its time to learn some coding. You have to make your designs FUNCTION. If you control the function, then you can control the form, and thats the key to breaking out of the box. WordPress is fully capable of allowing this sort of thing.
Learnxpress.com
November 19th, 2009 9:58 pmInteresting read.
Mike
November 19th, 2009 10:00 pm^^ Amen
Adriaan Fenwick
November 19th, 2009 10:14 pmWow, I enjoyed this post thanks Paddy.
I definitely think that this method of blogging has merit – and although many disagree with it, they can at least incorporate some of the techniques above on a small level, because you can have a consistent template for your site and tweak your posts to vary a little bit from each other.
I am also in the process of deciding what design direction I want to take my blog and am definitely considering drawing inspiration from the article.
Nice work!
janemask
November 19th, 2009 10:18 pmThe idea is very entertaining, and the idea for this exact post is great :)
Oh, but why don’t we just post layouts’ pictures (better png, I guess) and let the code rest in peace? It certainly is a coding challenge every time and I think it’s only appropriate for well-branded bloggers-by-profession whose blogging takes about half of working time. I’d rather spend extra time for polishing the content, I even agree to design a new layout every time, but coding it just isn’t worth it.
Well maybe that’s my point of view since I’m a designer only, not a developer.
Martin Chaov
November 19th, 2009 10:29 pmImpressive work, but I felt kind of strange about this idea … like a developer who has just comprehended the idea of rewriting his framework for every single page on the web site….
Leon Poole
November 19th, 2009 10:31 pmAs much as I love the layout of this post, it dosen’t allow the reader to easily ‘scan’ the post for information… it wins because it’s different, but fails on function. Designing like this is really just for the sake of design.
Nikke
November 19th, 2009 10:32 pmNever wanted so much to read on as with this article. Small chunks of information in an ever changing presentation – I think it’s the first time I really had a ‘wonderful user experience’. Exciting!
Ads
November 19th, 2009 10:35 pmfantastic – thank you for sharing.
Mike
November 19th, 2009 10:50 pm@Leon Poole
Scanning a post? thats what title headings & excerpts are for…if your not going to read the whole thing don’t bother…
Scanning makes sense in basic information sites, buy my shit sites things of that nature. Blogs are for reading not scanning so I disagree.
Scanning a post is like skipping chapters in a book.
On another note on layout why not set up a custom css “wrapper of sorts”
we have a template system for a reason and we don’t have to adhere to the
generic WordPress way thats why we have templatepath? can’t think of the name right now…Just a thought.
Sometimes I prefer to keep my css Section out of includes when necessary to
do things of this sort granted for very large sites not practical but then again with some foresight very easy to do yet not conventional. Another option would be compress the living hell out of a extrastyles.css and gzip it.
ad
November 19th, 2009 11:26 pmWow. That’s great. Thanks a lot!
kat
November 19th, 2009 11:27 pmAlthough the article mentions that anyone can install WordPress, I’d like to point out that the designers above aren’t all using WordPress (JSM uses Expression Engine) so whatever point you’re trying to make is irrelevant. Unless that point is not all of us are design and tech savvy to pull it off, which many of us already know.
Jaime
November 20th, 2009 5:24 pmThe point is completely relevant… He’s not trying to tell you that you can or can’t do this with wordpress, expression engine, drupal or whatever… He’s trying to say that having a blog is now a thing of clicking a link in your cheapo hosting that will auto install everything for you in 5 minutes.
Basically, the point which you failed to comprehend is that now the field is not limited to people with the capacity and desire to either make or buy a design and code to get their site online. Now your mom, my aunt, and everyones’ chihuahua can have a blog in 10 minutes, which makes having one a lot less glamorous and the competition fierce, but filled with filler websites and content.
Pieter
November 19th, 2009 11:33 pmInspiration comes in many forms. Thanks for this piece!
Jason Stockton
November 19th, 2009 11:34 pmI think variety is good in posts, but lets not forget that people read blogs for the information. There’s a fine line between being too creative that it over powers the information. I disliked the layout of this post because it required me to constantly scroll to read a small block of text, then scroll again, than the background changed which left me wondering is this the end of that post and another post has all of a sudden appeared. The sites featured do what this article is about really well. This post however misses the mark when putting it into practise.
blackbraindesign
November 19th, 2009 11:36 pmwow it’s an incredible power post example…very compliments and sorry for my bad english too…:D
Mobileuser
November 19th, 2009 11:52 pmThis is great for people who browse from their mobile devices. Not.
valerio lo bello
November 20th, 2009 12:07 amRevolutionary!
p.
November 20th, 2009 12:21 amContent comes first.
Alex
November 20th, 2009 1:29 amYep, Content always comes first. This article was innovative and correct in many aspects, but probably appealing mostly to a small clique of designers perceiving themselves as edgy and progressive.
Smashing Magazine has, apart from this article, always had the same layout for all articles, and since Smashing Magazine is mindbogglingly fantabolous, why should that be a bad thing?
Tim
January 26th, 2010 4:37 pmI don’t think it’s edgy and advanced at all. It’s a webdesign equivalent of a throwback to times of photoshop filters and faux japanese techno flyers.
Kahlil Lechelt
November 20th, 2009 12:46 amFascinating and inspiring. Thank you!
LogoForTen
November 20th, 2009 1:15 amnot to mention that smashingmagazine is earning enough from this blog that they can invest so much of time, but think about the days when you were just get started… i will assume this that BIG fishes are trying to eat up the small once… and i still see OLD time posts in SM these days too…
Jonas
November 20th, 2009 1:26 amPersonally, I found this a very interesting article, and I definately like the idea of giving an article the lay-out is deserves, but I understand both sides of the argument.
This is a style that, when executed properly, will draw you in to the content. It could do so to the point where an article could be complete nonsense, but I’d read it because of the lay-out. Call it exploring if you will. It’s definately refreshing, and it gave me ideas for my own site I’m working on. I have a personal background as a desktop-publisher, so I’ll always have a soft spot for print-style design.
However, this style of designing is very situational. While some print-techniques can be executed in most blogs (whitespace, large quotes, …) to make everything more interesting, using it to this extent is something you must be careful with, because at some point you have to make a decision: do you wanna be informative, or do you want to create some art? You can mix the two up a bit, but if you really want to tell something, people like Lee Theobald, who don’t see as good as others, won’t read your articles, or at the very least they won’t enjoy it as much as they could.
By all means, I’d love to see people use this style, but there’s a time and place for everything. I do hope people think before they start going all out on design.
My only tiny complaint about this article is the same thing Brad Czerniak said earlier: especially at the part starting at “The Microblogging Revolution”, some of the colored text looked like a link, and I tried clicking them a couple of time. This is something that should be avoided at all costs.
I do hope this was somewhat constructive, looking forward to more interesting articles.
Jonas
Shuuun
November 20th, 2009 1:28 amAmazing stuff!!!
SM you broke the rules and took this post to a new level.
It looks more like a pdf than a blog post!
That made my day :) Awesome !!!
Its important to do new things, and this is just wouw :))) i was stunned by the layout, i will read the content later :DD
Peter Green
November 20th, 2009 1:37 amI was before JSM to adopt this technique :))
But i must say, it takes so much effort that i have just switched from my custom engine to wordpress clear theme. Before that i tried to make full page posts from scratch since early 2008 at least!! :))
samoth
November 20th, 2009 1:42 amI go to smashingmagazine.com and read an article. Man, that was really great. I’d like to comment and ask the author a question. I scroll down…410 comments. Ugh. Screw this.
Ben
November 20th, 2009 1:48 amthat’s fantastic!
I love the new perspective on that topic!
MJR
November 20th, 2009 2:11 amThe article title is controversial – I assume it’s supposed to be.
Consistently good blogs earn RSS subscriptions; RSS readers transform meticuluous layouts such as this into a wall of text. (The reason I opened this URL is because I wanted to read the comments)
However, I think the magazine-style layout of this article is brilliant and I would like to see it used more frequently – for non-RSS content.
dave
November 20th, 2009 2:15 amoh. my. god. this is the most beautifully inspiring blog posts i have seen. influential- makes me want to roll up my sleeves and work.
one issue- designers have the means to do this moreso than a content focused blogger. but i love the concept this is definitely best suited for designers or multi-author blogs.
Ty Johnson
November 20th, 2009 2:15 amI don’t know about you guys but I enjoy when rules are broken.
The content was readable and enjoyable to read so what is the fuss?
Do I think everyone should do it? No way, but it works for these blogs.
So in all, this was a very cool blog post.
Quakeulf 8'3~
November 20th, 2009 2:22 amHOLY COW!!! What a great post this is. Probably the coolest post on Smashingmagazine yet, and I’ve been following this blog for years now. :3
nan
November 20th, 2009 2:24 amThis is terrible. Dificult to read, no brand, no information architecture, i can’t read it !! 30 seconds and i left this blog. A blog post it’s made with a reading purpose… i have a big monitor with a big resolution… what about the legibility in a 800×600 monitor? or 1024? I understand that it’s funny, but it’s inconsistent… (sorry for my english..)
Rafa Carrasco
November 20th, 2009 2:32 ammind blowing!
Daniel
November 20th, 2009 2:45 amI do not find myself too often feeling a need to comment on an article, yet this post caught me totally off guard. I honoustly think this is a very innovative, renewing way to present one’s thoughts, and I like to nominate this post for ‘post of the year’ — might there be such a thing on Smashing Magazine.
John Wilson
November 20th, 2009 2:50 ama great suprise when I clicked through and a great post. I’d love to see more of this on smashing magazine.
the dude playin' the dude, disguised as another dude
November 20th, 2009 3:08 amInteresting and very beautiful, but too time consuming I think. Not only must one write a good blogpost, one has to make different templates for each blogpost as well.
Ozan Dikerler
November 20th, 2009 3:32 amwoww this post was amazing :) I would like to have time to customize my own posts too.
Marcel
November 20th, 2009 3:48 amSM: You got it!
virtualchaitra.com
November 20th, 2009 3:54 amthe page design looks good…
Andreas Brixen
November 20th, 2009 4:15 amI would also nominate Danny Garcia in this category. Although he hasn’t been so productive yet, I really like his first steps of theming his blog.
http://danny-garcia.com/articles/
Darick
November 20th, 2009 4:17 amhummm… is someone understand the big problem which is unsolvable for this kind of website presentation?
i see all of comments tell that its good and nothing else… for me i think about the lambda user.
How a simply user of web react when he open the next page or other….
under the technical style which is simpatic i think that you loose all user and loose a lot of reader.
You can use this kind of style but for me its only for some event and not for all article and pages.
as you wish i made my opinion
C. Rauter
November 20th, 2009 4:34 amwow, amazing article !!!
bob ama
November 20th, 2009 4:53 amtl:dr
GLASGOW
November 20th, 2009 5:01 amCouldn’t agree more, and have been struggling with how to tackle this point myself for a while…. because i am a writer… and although i have experience at designing as an art director… I am not a web designer, and have limited knowledge of using online programmes. I would like to learn more, so that i can do my writing justice through good design. I will certainly look up some of the reading materials suggested here, and check out the plug ins.
BUT question for everyone: Is it right that we all feel we must be both writers and designers now? Surely collaboration between us still gives the best looking and reading material?
Eliot Sykes
November 20th, 2009 5:07 amTop article, great job, thanks for sharing. I’d never heard of blogazines before – and surprised this hasn’t become popular – it’d be a good thing if it did.
Jonny Campbell
November 20th, 2009 5:07 amGreat post and I agree with all the points raised. I do have one concern regarding the ‘blogazine’ style post — I find that it’s difficult to differeniate between blogs/sites as each post has its own theme. I have been on both Jason’s and Dustin’s site and have wanted to go back to a particular post and forgotten which blog it was on so maybe that’s something to take into consideration? Or maybe that’s just me…
GLASGOW
November 20th, 2009 5:07 amps….. any clues on HOW TO RATE this article?? i can’t see any stars to click etc. I’d click 5stars if I could see them! thanks.
Jorg
November 20th, 2009 5:26 amBloody love it, reading an article this way was a pleasure, thank you!
Dani
November 20th, 2009 5:45 amWow! That really made me rethink my old designing concepts.
Thank you!
Jay
November 20th, 2009 5:47 amThis article was difficult to read. Not because of the content, but because of the haphazard art direction.
Pedro Lopes
November 20th, 2009 5:55 amMy 2 cents…
This was one of the best posts I’ve read at Smashing Magazine and I believe it is perfect for some very specific scenarios… However, if we publish 7 posts a week, every single one with a different scheme it would completely break out the general site layout…
This is interesting for once in a time posts (like this one), but working in a daily basis it would be very tiring, for both publishers and readers!
Just compare magazines to newspapers… Magazines (weekly, monthly) have the freedom to make some changes and to create more “strange” articles. However, newspapers cannot do this, they must keep the same design and scheme every single day in order to gather a large reader base!
Keep up the good work and give us more posts like this! (but not all of them, please!)
Matthew Fedak
November 20th, 2009 5:56 amWhat is a “blogazine”, a blog that got popular and turned into a magazine? Web developer style blogs are allowed to be minimal in design and quite similar in appearance as they are just sharing information are they not? Obviously design subject blogs need to be a bit more aesthetically pleasing though! I am a web developer based in Leicester, UK and my blog, I would say is minimal and not over designed because it does not need to be..I am a developer afterall, not a web designer!
Tom Muller
November 20th, 2009 6:17 amSome interesting designers were featured, but in general this article is missing the point:
a) Magazines DO use the same layout every month to present content, with only a small section that is custom designed (usually a main feature). The same with newspapers. And they’re not boring most of the time. Its just not efficient to redesign the layout every single time you publish something (as most of your interviewees confirm).
That same rule applies for blogs and magazines online. Sure, the layout of this article is nice, because it breaks the mould of SM, but if this becomes the standard it’ll become tired and boring all the same. Remember, people primarily read blogs, magazines, and newspapers because of their content.
And lastly, you forgot the vast amount of people who subscribe to blogs and read everything through RSS readers, which strip out all design and just present you with content.
andres
November 20th, 2009 6:19 amamazing… blow my mind..
One of the best post that i have seen in smashingmagazine..
dolce
November 20th, 2009 6:25 amOutstanding post. – Thank you for inspiration!
J2Kfm
November 20th, 2009 6:32 amThis is a good read. I was always wondering, how does one separate one’s blog from the crowd, and differentiating a blog from a website? With endless new themes being churned out day in and day out, blogazine- themed layouts are more and more common, but still for some blogs, I believe that the common, and simple theme works best.
Seba
November 20th, 2009 6:48 amMmmh, never noticed that blogs have design, because I just read them through RSS… What is this post about?
dandam
November 20th, 2009 7:49 amDaryl Koopersmith’s great/very promising new’Elastic Theme Framework and WYSIWYG Child Theme Generator for WordPress’ (http://code.google.com/p/elastictheme/) may be just the tool for designers who want to pursue the magazine blog post layout. As demo-ed at the SF and NY WordCamps, Daryl’s theme allows for drag drop layout creation of new template pages, with CSS created on the fly for background colors, etc.
I’d link to a video of the demo, but I haven’t found one yet. It’s definitely worth a download to your dev server to play with…
Daryl Koopersmith
December 5th, 2009 5:24 pmThanks dandam! You’ve really hit the nail on the head—one of the long term goals for Elastic is to make magazine layouts more accessible. We’re definitely a while from getting there, but someday!
For anyone that’s interested, you can find more info (including that demo) at http://elastictheme.org/
jean
November 20th, 2009 8:27 amGood post , it’s very good work on the futur of the blog’s trend , it inspired me to create a blogzine about the media . Thx
Hugo
November 20th, 2009 9:05 amI certainly hope this doesn’t become too big a trend. Even with CSS disabled, I had a tough time working through this post (never mind skimming it to see if it’s worth reading). It felt like the author was trying really hard to slow down my reading.
I say, nice for coffee table blogs, for wowing the CSS n00bs, or for the attention-impaired — but counterproductive for anyone who’s serious about readability.
Matt Berridge
November 20th, 2009 9:21 amI have to ask what is worth more…a *creative* layout or something worth saying? If you can do both then great, but I don’t think many have the potential and/or time to articulate both.
daniel
November 20th, 2009 9:23 amI think you should spend more time worrying about shipping our book instead of writing long long posts. Are you sitting down having fun and getting money on your Paypal account in Germany while our book is being stolen by pirates in Somalia or went fishing on Singapore? Totally dissapointing., wondering how you are making a lot of money with your site being that irresponsible and disastrous. First and last buy on Smashing Magazine – newbies – BEWARE!!!
Dan
November 20th, 2009 10:34 amI think you’ve just made a good point. Despite that I like the design of the article above I’m really frustrated about Smashing Book. It was supposed to be in my hands in September and now you say, Smashing Magazine, you will start sending it on 5th of Dec. Really annoying.
I’m just wondering what will be you excuse on 3rd of December. Terrorists? Bad gnomes?
kjz
November 20th, 2009 10:37 amQuite brilliant, thanks!
le touriste
November 20th, 2009 11:15 amUn mot: Merci*
Rick
November 20th, 2009 11:38 amThe 90s called. They want their misguided ideas about the internet back.
BTW, this isn’t “creativity”, quite the opposite. It’s the utter lack of it. It’s boring. It’s reactionary. It reeks of fear. It does for design what Rupert Murdoch does for newspapers.
Looks pretty though. Like a nice wallpaper.
Adrian L.
November 27th, 2009 10:56 amThis comment reeks of a lack of vision.
BooshMedia
November 20th, 2009 11:39 amI’m currently designing a blog and this has helped loads, thanks!!!
Roc Dornbrook
November 20th, 2009 12:44 pmI’ve been doing this on my websites for more than a year now, it’s important to point out that for those that don’t blog, this too can be applied to simple websites by changing the layout in every section, there’s that website with the whale (hmm I guess their name is not too memorable) that does that. It’s so much fun to do this, and very useful because it lets you adapt to the specific content of your section and add any cross selling elements/content and still look nice. Also you can have your home page look more like a magazine/book cover!
This technique proves that there is still plenty of room for innovation on the internet. It’s a matter of taking the time to think and the guts to execute.
Terry
November 20th, 2009 1:09 pmIt’s as if you used the same key, instruments, tempo and structure for every song you wrote. Just put some different lyrics in it and time-stamp it so you know the difference! Haha.
Matt
November 20th, 2009 1:11 pmWhile this post was awesome (and beautiful), I did not enjoy reading. The multitude of content sporadically placed about (and superfluous amounts of spacing) made it very hard for me to skim this post, which is very important if you want to get people to read your posts in the first place. If I can’t find a few pieces of information I’m looking for by skimming, I’m not going to waste my time on the entire post.
Brett
November 20th, 2009 1:13 pmThis is cool for designers but for a general audience not really. For example, I found this article really interesting to read but when I got through the first example I just scrolled down to the comments because in a vertical scrolling website it is just way too fragmented. I want all the content right there and easy to read. This here flows and looks nice but readability is lacking in my opinion.
The audience you appeal to on the web is VASTLY different than the audience reading a magazine. On the web, people expect their content to be delivered to them quick and in small bite sized pieces. If it isn’t they won’t spend the time bothering with it just like I did with this article, skipped right through it because it was so long. There needs to be a point where you draw the line between design and general readability.
When reading a magazine, you have more freedom because you are looking at it in your hands, a physical object. You can clearly see the flow of the entire page and all the content laid out. You can also get away with smaller type thus giving more space to create effective design.
This is my problem with this. I would love to see more design elements incorporated into blog posts so they weren’t so cookie cutter but this here to me is overkill.
I really like the look of this and I think in some instances this particular practice could be really appealing but I wouldn’t recommend it as a common practice.
Den
November 20th, 2009 1:18 pmGreat Stuff… for the first time i read the entire article….. amazing technique but to design a article like to would be time consuming.. I think
Michael
November 20th, 2009 1:20 pmI would like to know how long this took from concept to publishing.
Joey Guerra
November 20th, 2009 1:49 pmThis is the best article I’ve ever read on your blog. And the design, along with the content, held my ADD attention.
Rogers sampaio
November 20th, 2009 1:56 pmI have to warning SM that on the front page this post has 0 comments
jack parsons
November 20th, 2009 2:10 pmYeah, I’ve noticed that too. Does the “non-boring blog post” mean breaking functionality? :-)
Henry
November 20th, 2009 2:57 pmI like this idea as much as every designer likes logo books, but please don’t apply it to SM. This concept works great for a personal site where the designer’s ego is more important than all of its visitors. Usability-wise it sucks. I do like the variation on print magazine, but imo, this concept doesn’t translate well on web. If I had the time I’d definitely try it on my personal site though. Thanks for the great article.