Do you jot down ideas and thoughts for blog posts while out and about? I’ve been thinking about blogging, blog design and the web in general over the long weekend here and ended up with a list like this to remind myself of things I want to write about

• Home grown tomatoes
• Vitamin D and sunlight
• My first bedroom posters
• Rearranging furniture

I will elaborate on these cryptic scribblings shortly.

In the meantime, I’ve been inspired by a quote and an interview:

“It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.” - Roosevelt

Thanks to Joshua Porter for blogging it!

The interview is with Auckland’s mayor John Banks and most of that stuff I never knew about him.

The finalists for the 2008 Bloggies have been announced and voting is underway for the winners.

Let’s take a look at this year’s five Best-Designed Weblog Finalists:

» Engadget and Gizmodo

They’re the two most popular blogs in the world as ranked by Technorati. Given that, it’s probably not surprising that they made the cut. They’re functional designs, complete with branding and ads galore and topic-appropriate. Yet they don’t seem terribly inspiring or original to me. They fade in comparison to the other designs in this category.

Gizmodo is one of the few blogs I visit that still has a left-aligned page.

» Dooce

The only personal blog in the finalists. I love the gorgeous dog seemingly popping out of the page, the header and footer. Somehow the design really lets me down in the content area, given that the rest has real character to it. Have I really grown so tired of the grey gradient?

» Design*Sponge and Web Designer Wall

In my opinion, these two designs are a class above the other finalists. In each case, the design is highly original, compliments the content and it flows through the entire page. Attention to detail is paramount - take a look at how each post has a different image associated with it in each blog, how handmade looking items keep the site personal and friendly. I’d love if it either of these sites won. They are both inspiring blog design examples!

What are your thoughts on the finalists?

Thanks for all your emails and messages saying you’re happy I’m back blogging. Last year was a tough one, so I’m starting this one out with new perspective and a freshness to blogging again here. It’s great!

I joined up to Twitter a long time ago but stopped using it quickly in favour of updating my status on Facebook. Loved doing that, but realised that the history feature is only so long (might be fun to look back on?), friends outside Facebook couldn’t follow along and there was no RSS feed. And while I am probably behind the rest of you, here’s what I have used, in case it is of help to others:

The Facebook Twitter application which updates my Facebook status (no point in having to keep up two of the things). Only downside is it adds “is twittering:” to the start of the status. Others are complaining about this, so perhaps this will change.

Twessenger which updates my MSN Messenger status.

twhirl saving me refreshing a page, or pushing all the updates into Google Reader, I have downloaded this and it sits there like an instant messenger window.

Twitter Feed automatically pulls in blog updates to my Twitter account.

If you’d like to get in touch via Twitter, visit my profile page.

Have you used Pownce? I’d consider switching to it if the file transfers were faster than MSN messenger. Anyone know if they are?

At the end of 2005, I posted some of common blog design trends out there. Time has marched on and it was time for an update. While many of these trends are not new, they are becoming more common and requested by clients when starting a new blog.

» Stacked entry dates

Dates are displayed compactly, to the left of the blog entry either in one-page-a-day mini-calendar or something simpler. Sometimes dates also stick out of the layout as little flags.

Examples include: veerle, denk-licht, works4sures, superfluousbanter, tickerville, BubblesSOC, and cult-f.

» Handmade elements

Breaking up the perfectly straight lines, shiny buttons and smooth gradients comes design which adds handmade looking elements to the design to bring a sense of originality and humanness. Whether it be masking tape, bumpy lines, drawings or watercolor paint - even the appearance of something handmade - gives the impression of breaking up the computer-driven design.

Examples include: Carsonified, Jardedigital, The World’s Leading, eleven3, Fray, Web designer wall, Verbalized and Daily Candy.

» Farewell thee tag cloud?

Once the rage, many blogs have now removed tag clouds, or relegated them to an archive page, rather than center stage. Others are using them in different ways (such as we are with Throng).

» Goodbye “Web 2.0″ design?

For a long time, all the clients I came across requested that their site must look “Web 2.0″. Many now just want to be more original. While “Web 2.0 design” will remain with us for some time yet, newer blogs are using less rounded corners, gradients, shiny buttons and badges and exploring different ways of presenting blogs which complement their site’s content. Not all blogs are tech blogs!

» Out with one trend, in with another

I’d like to say that blogs are becoming less cluttered but it’s probably not true. The tiny narrow sidebars which were crammed with badges, blogrolls, reading lists, subscribe buttons and more from blogs of past have evolved into wider sidebars with grids of square ads, widgets, avatars of side visitors, Flickr feeds, badges to Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. There will be new widgets, gimmicks and information crammed into sidebars for some time to come.

» Stretching it out

This has been happening for a number of years, but more and more blogs now sport wide screen layouts. Larger photos are being used, larger embedded videos, larger ads, larger headers. Few are liquid-based layouts but some blogs are now so wide, the reading length is less than optimal. Expect to see bigger ad formats become standard - recently spotted on our local newspaper site: 320px x 600px ads!

» Goodbye left hand column

The skinny left hand column has gone from many blogs, replaced with a wider right hand column. The three column layout has been switched to have the content in a very wide left column, with two wide right sidebars. This places more emphasis on the latest blog content as we read from left to right. The clutter is swept to the right side of the page.

» Introducing…

Many blogs now have a handy introductory paragraph for new visitors in a highlighted box. Many start with “Welcome to…” or “Hi, I’m… a …. who … . I blog about …”. If it’s a more personal blog, or the blog author wants to set a friendly tone with his audience, a photo will sit up to the right of the paragraph.

» Branching out with fonts

While designers are usually stuck with a limited number of fonts, the SIFR trend of using Flash to display any font (while keeping it readable by search engines and not an image) is still spreading slowly (even though it has been available for years). Expect to see these more on designers’ blogs, or professionally designed blogs as it can be quite technical to get it working well - even though there are Wordpress plugins to help.

» But wait.. there’s more!

Have I missed something out that you’ve been noticing in blog trends lately? Please share!

I have been devouring a wide variety of books this summer, including Michael King’s Penguin History of New Zealand that I’ve been meaning to read for a number of years. A quote from it has stayed in the back of my mind and I’ve been pondering it:

…societies are conditioned not so much by events as by group memories of events…

The stories we share about something that happened become clearer over time that the actual happening itself. This is true in blogging - in years to come we can look back and re-read what we wrote on our blog, what others wrote on their blogs and what is shared takes on a life of its own. The stories we share and laugh about and reminisce over remain more in our minds than the countless other events which fade in our memories.