25 Kick-Ass Blog Designs (My Favorites)
There are a lot of really slick blog designs from very talented designers out there. So I thought I’d make a list of my all time favorite ones, hopefully you’ll find some you’ve never seen on this list. Here we go:
A List Apart is probably one of my favorite blogs because of the quality of the content but also because of the clean and (always) fresh design.
Armen Thomassian put this new design online not so long ago and I must say I totally love it! It’s dark, it’s fresh and I love the wooden background.
Blogsessive has this cool mascot/character in the header. Really catchy!
I just love this design! Spoon Graphics Blog has this massive header, you just can’t forget it. Great work!
Design Reviver is fairly new and caught my attention immediately. The ‘Grungy’ feel is very popular right now, and Design Reviver pulls it off very nicely.
DevLounge has to be one of my favorite minimalist design. Excerpts on the frontpage and minimal use of colors always does the trick.
Don’t Trust This Guy has very nice typography, I’m not a big fan of sIFR though but this design is just great!
Gotta love the background images on Evan Eckard’s site!
iDesignStudios has a very dark design with pattern background. I’m usually not a big fan of light text on dark background but this one is very artistic and for some reason the light on dark doesn’t bother me at all! And you got a cool mascott/character in the header, always nice! :)
Left aligned, content/sidebar/sidebar layout, Josh Spear is just great! Not your typical blog design, feels good and is refreshing.
On top of being a Bikini.com Supermodel, Larissa Meek is a kick-ass designer! Can you tell I love pattern backgrounds?
Noupe has an impressive and very unique blog design. I’m sure there’s was a lot of efforts put into this design. No wonder this blog is growing pretty fast.
I really like how they put the recent posts and bookmarks on the blog homepage at OnWired.
Pearsonified is without a doubt my favorite blog design! Period.
Photoshop Lady has some cool mascots/cartoons in the header. Nice use of icons both in the vertical menu and in the content area (left of titles and below posts excerpts)
Can you find the menu on Playground Blues? Move your mouse to the left of the page. See? That’s kick-ass!
I had to include ProBlogger on this list. Main reason is because I find Darren’s new design is such a huge improvement over the previous design. Magazine-style with DOMTabs below the posts in the middle section. Good job!
PS Hero recently changed the design and it’s great! The header is awesome!
Nice use of transparent PNGs on Simply Fired. Ok IE6 doesn’t really like that, but it’s a great design nonetheless.
You just can’t miss Dan Rubin’s Superfluous Banter! Orange does rule!
Click on ‘about’ in the top menu! That’s cool! True Blue Titan has a ‘Grungy’ feel but nothing overwhelming, love it!
Mascots and cartoons are becoming more and more popular these days and the one on Vectips fits the topics of the blog perfectly.
Sometimes when you visit a new blog it takes a couple minutes to really figure out what the blog is really about, well not with Woork. Just a quick look at the header and you got a pretty good idea. :)
WP Designer is (or used to be?) a great resource site for all things WordPress. The site was sold recently and we’ve yet to see new posts, but still the design is great, SP did a really good job on this one.
Young Go Getter has a ‘Grungy’ body background image but the design is still very clean. Also, Vanilla forum has been implemented and the latest forum post is displayed between blog posts on the homepage. Good idea if you want to build that sense of community on your blog. Great job!
Your Turn To Talk
So, which ones are your favorites? And why? I’d love to know what you think. Also, a lot of people seem to be going for the grunge look lately (Matt Mullenweg for example), do you think it’s there to stay? Will it stay longer than the glossy look? Share your thoughts in the comment section below! :)
About the author:
Jon Phillips is the founder and owner of SpyreStudios. He's been freelancing for many years and now focusses on WordPress development and blog design for small businesses and online publishers (see portfolio here).
Are you a talented designer who enjoys writing and blogging? If you are, we want to hear from you! We're currently looking for contributors!
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May 4th, 2008
Woah! Wicked post Jon… and wicked designs too!
May 4th, 2008
Pearsonified is an outstanding design!
May 4th, 2008
Thanks Armen! (http://armenthomassian.com/themes/) Can’t decide which one I want to use for new blog!
Great work there, everyone!
May 4th, 2008
One of my favorites is this http://www.reinholdweber.com, very clean yet grungy with wide open spaces
May 4th, 2008
One of my top 5 favorites is: http://www.iamjoshbrown.com/blog/
May 4th, 2008
this is a great list you have compiled. I have seen a few of these before but some are new to me..will be checking these out! Cheers.
May 4th, 2008
Thanks all! Glad you found it interesting and found some sites you didn’t know about :)
@Zakman: check out Armen’s Bedrock Grid theme, it’s a very nice one, $20
@Daniel: totally, my all time favorite!
May 4th, 2008
GREAT LIST! … there were a few here I’d never even heard of! I’m flattered to be in such amazing company.
May 4th, 2008
@Jan & Nathan: Cool stuff, thanks for sharing. Reinhold Weber’s site is beautiful :)
@HERO: Hey you’re welcome! I find your new design fits really well in the ‘kick-ass‘ category, great job! ;)
May 4th, 2008
sweet list!
Thanks!
May 5th, 2008
I think Ron (ronchy.com) did a great job on my blog GuitarNoize.com
May 5th, 2008
Oops, the link to Ronchy was totally wrong, sorry, it is http://www.ronchydesign.com/ my apologies!
May 5th, 2008
Wow, Jon! Thanks so much for the mention! I’m among some amazingly beautiful company here. :)
May 5th, 2008
I hope someday my blog will be well designed enought to be featured in lists like this :)
May 5th, 2008
where ist http://momworx.de ? :-)
May 5th, 2008
Fun list. Now I have blog envy and need to track down a graphic artist.
Doug
May 5th, 2008
Jon,
Thanks for featuring Design Reviver! It is nice to be grouped in with such great sites. Thanks again!
May 5th, 2008
@all, glad you like the list! :)
@Selene & Henry: you’re very welcome! Your designs just rock!
@Jon: that’s a nice design, I like the grungy look! (and I’m a guitarist too!, you got a new RSS subscriber hehe)
May 6th, 2008
Hey, nice list i think http://www.mootywebdesign.com.au/blog is pretty unique
May 6th, 2008
These are nice but some of these have just used images from iStockphoto like iDesignStudios and Photoshop Lady was taken from – http://www.istockphoto.com/fil…..ID=2027290
May 6th, 2008
Awesome company to be in and thanks for mentioning us! Looks like I’ve got some bookmarking to do.
I have to give a vote to Viget’s Design blog as well, it’s one of my favorites at the moment – http://www.viget.com/inspire/
Tony
May 6th, 2008
@coyle: thanks for sharing this one, cool cat!!
@Shannon: that’s what istock is for, isn’t it? :)
@Tony: you’re welcome! I first came across onwired via cssmania, and really liked the ‘better drop shadows‘ tutorial, and I love the design! Oh and yes, Viget totally rocks! :)
May 7th, 2008
great collection
May 7th, 2008
Great Post….
May 19th, 2008
Great picks, most of my favorites are on here. I go to these for inspiration. My favorite is the simplicity of http://woork.blogspot.com/
May 20th, 2008
You forgot http://www.cuoma.com/blog please, give me your feedback.
thanks! Santiago
May 31st, 2008
@all: Thanks for all the comments! Really appreciated! I got another ‘inspiration‘ post coming up soon! Stay tuned! :)
July 20th, 2008
Nice collection for sure, loving that Playground Blues site!
July 29th, 2008
My favorite blog design is Web Designer Wall, which aside from having one of the most beautiful layouts I’ve seen also has some wonderful content.
I’m hoping the grunge style is here to stay for a while, I really prefer it over the glossy look. I just redesigned my blog, Arbenting recently with a bit of a grungy look (it’s basically an overgrown version of my main website design).
July 30th, 2008
Many thanks for the inclusion! There’s some really inspiring and unique designs out there!
September 29th, 2008
Armen Thomassian’s site: did he change his template? white bg now, not as all as you’ve pictured. I’m bummed.
October 10th, 2008
very good… Thanks you very much !
October 10th, 2008
Cool overview… cool Designs.
November 28th, 2008
Nice list!! vectips is my personal favourite..
December 5th, 2008
Like Simply Fired, not soon keen on Spoon Graphics (though I love the content) simply because you have to scroll on every page if you use a normal resolution!
January 5th, 2009
Nice list. I have bookmarked the page. Thanks…:)
January 7th, 2009
Great collection, thank you.
I like many of the sites you listed above.
March 28th, 2009
Hello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language ;)
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo
August 3rd, 2009
Wow, the list is really cool.
Already seen some of’em
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