Blog Design: Show Some Restraint
Expert Author
Article Date: 2002-11-08
When it comes to envisioning your Blog’s design, starting from scratch with only a blank screen beaming unknown radiation into your retinas can have the unwanted effect of holding you back. Sometimes in order to move forward, you need to show some restraint. Setting parameters for yourself in advance can help you create a bold, useful blog or an artfully designed journal with text that escapes into your mind from within the confines of a gracefully constructed simplicity.
Some of the most ingenious solutions have come into existence under circumstances with limited resources at hand. When your back is to the wall, you get creative. It's as simple as that. The problem is that sometimes that wall is not already there.
Create Your Own Limitations
If you're working for a client, you'll start out with limitations. They will most likely want you to use their logo and colors, match elements of an existing site, and other constraints. But if you're setting out to build a blog that's your own personal independent publishing endeavor, the canvas is totally blank.
This can be a problem. With no framework to work around, people can get lost trying to do everything and nothing at the same time. A blog heavy on graphics and tricked out with every possible web gadget, or trying to dazzle with some kind of theme or concept, just won't do.
In other words, if you find yourself thinking any of the following thoughts, you should slap yourself upside the head (in a friendly way):
ž "My blog will look like a slightly open lunchbox, and the sandwich will be my entries!" ž "I love boats. My blog is a schooner, and you click the shark to go to my archive index page!" ž "Sherlock Holmes rocks. My blog is a big magnifying glass, and the words are huge!" ž "Everything on my blog will be backwards like Leonardo DaVinci's notebooks."
Actually, that last one's kind of cool—as long as your readers have a mirror they can hold up next to their screen.
It's okay to riff off a concept, but the key is to give yourself a certain set of parameters and stick within them. For example, let's say you have some Moorish tiles you pried off a wall at the Alhambra when you went to Spain. Moorish tiles are beautiful, and you want your blog to be beautiful, too. Of course, because you are now cursed for life, this makes little difference. Nevertheless, let’s continue.
If your back is going to be to the wall, you’ll first need the wall. So if you have none already, create your own limitations. Tell yourself that must only use a simple graphic header no larger than 20k, default underlined links, black text in a column under your header, and that's it for now. Then, pick out colors from the tiles—let's say they have orange, green, and blue.
If you can scan in the tiles, that's great. You can use them as the graphic element in your header. Reverse your blog title out of a 600-pixel-wide block or use a thin strip underneath the title. Make your title orange, your links blue, and your timestamps green. Put this all against a white background, and you'll have a clean, simple, museum-like blog with hints of Moorish colors and some tile work. Now you can blog your next trip to Spain in digital style. Of course, if your chosen blog topic is about flatscreen television technology, this design might be somewhat non sequitor. But hey, at least it's not a sandwich.
Think Simple
What do you get when you cross a talented writer with a gifted HTML designer? Jason Gurley’s blog, DeeplyShallow (www.deeplyshallow.com) is one shining example of simplicity and accessibility in action. Ample white space and a narrow column of gray text together create a page reminiscent of classic, reader-friendly magazine design. Like most blogs, the latest entry is the star of the page.
In addition to inspiring all of us to be better writers, Jason takes it a step further with his thorough approach to accessible web design. With some help from Bobby, (http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp) a comprehensive software tool designed to help web designers reach compliance with existing accessibility guidelines, and the W3C HTML Validation Service (http://validator.w3.org/), Jason has created a blog that everyone is invited to enjoy. A clean, easy-to-read blog will prove more usable and, in the long run, will attract more regular readers than a bloated design. Plus, with a simple, streamlined approach and compliance with standards, you have less chance of browser incompatibility and errors. When it's time to (re)design your blog, think simple. You can always add on later.
Adding On
Okay maybe sooner rather than later. Eventually you’ll want to start adding other elements into your blog such as a “now playing” CD image, a search field, navigation, links to favorite sites, a short bio, whatever. When it’s not quite enough information to warrant a whole new page, but important enough that it needs to be a permanent feature on your blog, the best way to go is side boxes.
Instead of one column on your page, create two. Make one of them smaller, something under 200px wide and use it as a place to hold all these important bursts of hypertext goodness. When I designed the original templates for new bloggers at Xanga.com such as “Foggy Blog”
, I made sure additional information was contained in neat little boxes off to the side. It’s a standard but easily modified design that works great with blogs.
Designing Beyond the Blog
Designing a blog is a great way for anyone new to web design to get their feet wet, but for more experienced designers it’s also a good exercise in working with constraints. The elements that make a good blog are the same elements that make any page usable and accessible. If you decide to build more pages around your blog, or you’re working with archives enabled, then you’ll need to implement an easy to use navigation for your readers. Again, the side box comes in handy here and keeping navigation consistent is very important.
The streamlined, elemental thinking you’ve developed with your blog design will translate well towards future projects you may take on. Additionally, when you begin to think about using a blog-like content management system to power your whole site, you’ll have the skills to make it so.
About the Author:
Biz Stone is the author of Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content (2002 New Riders). For more Biz, check out his humble blog: Biz Stone, Genius. (http://www.bizstone.com/)
