Blog Design – the do’s and don’t’s

Today’s post comes from Sass, who designed Mummble for us.

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When I was asked to do the redesign for Mummble I was so excited. Louisa and Veronica are brilliant and we are so lucky to have them in the Australian blogosphere. So you can imagine my excitement when the ladies asked me to write a guest post on Blog Design dos and don’ts.

As a blog designer I have a couple of rules that I stick to when I’m putting a design together. I’m here to share a couple of my secrets with you.

Your blog is an extension of yourself. It needs to be inviting and appealing so people are encouraged to return.

Make your content area as clean and uncluttered as you can.

Try to stay away from having a dark posting area background and white text. The same goes for really busy and loud backgrounds. It’s incredibly hard to read when the font is the wrong colour or you have something that distracts the eye from your content. You will find a lot of people won’t stay on a site that has these features. You want to encourage people to stay on your blog. They won’t read how awesome you are if they can’t read the content because of your design!

Stick to colours that are pleasing to the eye, move away from any busy patterns or fluro colours. Fluro green might be your favourite colour but no one can see properly when his or her eyes are being burnt!

Fonts are really important.

Comic Sans should never ever ever be used on your blog. NEVER EVER.

Stick to only two fonts with your content or it will look like you’ve just clicked anything that came up and the results won’t be great. Again, think hard about the colour of your posting font. Stick with dark grey or black. Your headers and page titles can be a little more interesting.

Html isn’t the easiest thing in the world to learn.

It can be frustrating and confusing and that’s coming from a designer who has dedicated herself to html and css design.

If you are going to be brave and try to edit the html make sure you back the design up FIRST. I cannot tell you the amount of customers I have had that have come to me because they’ve changed something and they don’t know how to fix it.

There are hundreds of sites where you can download pre-made blog templates and you will also find that some blog designers also offer a couple of free designs or cheaper pre-made designs.

These are awesome and if you don’t want to spend much money on your blog but want a clean, polished and professional look.

Header and sidebars.

If you write a blog about food it’s generally best not to have a header with a cat and a dog in a park. Keep your design to what you write about. You won’t ever see a finance blog with a picture of a cake in the header.

If you are looking to advertise on your blog you need to be know that there is a big possibility that businesses will look at your blog.

Be aware of your sidebar width. Don’t let your sidebar widgets hang off the edge of your blog. It looks messy and unprofessional.

Make your email address easily accessible and close to the top of your page. Same for twitter and facebook if you have them.

If you decide to have someone do your blog design be as detailed as you like. Take your vision that you have and write it out! Don’t be scared to tell the designer that you don’t like what they have made. Sometimes I can make up 5 different designs! Not because my designs are horrible (I’m pretty awesome) but because the client has an idea of what they want and it’s not being communicated.
Send links of blogs or websites that you love, swatches of colours that you are in love with. It will make the process so much smoother and lots of fun to see your design being put into action.

Another thing…
If you pay for someone to design your blog, you will generally enter into an agreement with the designer. It will either be in their terms and conditions, or even a disclaimer in the html coding of your blog.

That agreement is that you are not allowed to alter their design in anyway.
That means that if you decide you want a new header but you want to keep everything else that they have designed, you are breaching their terms and conditions and the designer has the right to request you to remove the design template.
The same goes if you decide to change the background, how your layout looks but you keep the header, or even a design element from the header.
Generally if you contact the designer and ask them they will be fine, but always ask permission before you make any changes.

And lastly, have fun!
Bring your personality into the design and don’t be afraid to have a go.
You might surprise yourself with an awesome cool blog design.

Some awesome resources are:
www.moozoodesigns.com -That’s me!
www.makincuteblogs.com – This site is awesome for those wanting to DIY!
www.colorlovers.com – Fabulous to make your own backgrounds.
www.puglypixel.com -for some of the cutest elements ever.