The Importance of Design

I spent some time today redesigning the Buzz Marketing with Blogs blog (hope you like it) and thought I’d share a few musings on design with you. Since I make at least part of my living off my design skills, I tend to look for well-designed blogs, sometimes even before I look at the writing. Not all your readers will care whether you have a well-designed blog, but I’m not one of them! The way your blog looks is important because is what your visitors see before they’re read their first word. They will make decisions about whether to trust you, whether to comment and whether to come back based in part on the way your blog looks.

Of course, with a blog, a little good design can go a long way, since the most important element in the long run is the content. So as you think about where to focus your design time, pay particular attention to the layout—your blog needs to be legible—and to the branding of your blog. Let people know where they are by creating a unique masthead. Blogs are a good place to be creative with design (well, more so than a corporate Web site) so you can try something fun with the style of your quotes or your background.

Looking through my favorite blogs, here are some that have superb designs:

  • Dunstan Orchard’s blog: I love Dunstan’s creative use of programming and illustrations to create an interactive masthead for his blog.
  • Plasticbag.org: There’s a lot of design here without a lot of graphics or heavy illustrations. The text, and there is a lot of of it on every page, is the site’s main design element.
  • 990000: Photo blogs always have an advantage because they are working with visuals to begin with, but 990000 doesn’t let you get distracted by anything else.
  • Joi Ito’s Web: A blogger’s blog design! Joi has the quintessential blog look, but manages to incorporate photos seamlessly.
  • JasonZada.com: Beautifully warm, and I’m always thrilled when someone breaks the standard blog look. In this case, Jason has dropped everything that usually clutters of a side column to the bottom of the page.
  • Justwatchthesky: This site pulls it all together for an utterly cute experience. Every element has been carefully thought through, and the result is charming. (Visit soon if you want to see it in Christmas colors.

There are so many creatively designed blogs out there that it’s hard to stop with just a few, but over the coming months I’ll let you know when I find designs that I think make good use of the medium, or are just plain wonderful.

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 01/10 at 08:44 PM • A Little Design
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Comments

  1. You couldn’t be more right. I’ve been preaching this for years, and not just about blogs. Have you ever read Steve Krug’s ‘Don’t Make Me Think’?

    If not, read it today. It is the Bible of this type of thinking.

    Posted by Jim Kukral on 01/11/05 at 07:33 PM

  2. i have indeed read “don’t make me think” and it’s a great favorite of mine. it—pardon the bad joke—made me think.

    i own a copy of this book, but keep having to buy new ones as i give away the one i own to someone who just needs it.

    Posted by Susannah Gardner on 01/11/05 at 11:44 PM

  3. Looks great Susannah!  Excellent points.

    Posted by Tris Hussey on 01/12/05 at 09:51 AM
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