designer blogs

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After a bout of being sick (winter here and all), I have got back to working on my personal blog’s design again. I’m wanting to do something that’s different, but if you’ve seen this sort of design somewhere, please let me know.

Looking for a blog about blog design? Click here!

I recently scrapped my personal blog’s design - partly because I used that site as a test-bed for WordPress 1.5. In the process I mucked up a lot of things while peering under the hood of WordPress. I learnt a lot and I’m glad I did it!

It forced me to go back to basics on that blog and for a while I was using the Kubrick standard design that comes with WordPress. At least everything worked again I told myself.

Tonight I whipped up a new design, and it’s incredibly basic. I wanted to try with a different layout and to incorporate my soon-to-be-growing Flickr collection. I wanted to be free from the standard two or three column layout with an overwhelming number of links.

I’ve probably stripped things back too much, to the point of blandness but I’m happy to have something to work with over the coming weeks, to experiment and try a different layout.

Andy Budd has a great post up with warning signs when approached by clients wanting a website.

I’ll reorganise his comments and include additional ones from myself and his commentors:

• Unrealistic (short) timeline.
• Budget, potential client:
  • has no idea about budget (either haven’t done their homework or aren’t serious).
  • won’t disclose it (doesn’t trust you).
  • wants it as cheap as possible or has a very low budget (doesn’t value their web presence, can be demanding).
  • expects too much for their budget (difficult to manage expectations).
  • limited budget but offers compensation (e.g. exposure, more work to come, contacts, % of the site’s profits).
  • unwilling to pay a proportion of the costs upfront.
• Information, potential client:
  • hasn’t provided enough initial information or is vague, e.g. hasn’t filled in design questionnaire fully (may not take project seriously or are window shopping).
  • hasn’t told you how many other agencies they have contacted about the project (may be shopping for lowest quote).
  • wants a design idea for the pitch.
• Communication:
  • No central point of contact (can draw you into project management and company politics).

I’ve been a little quiet while I’ve been working on a re-launch of Idolblog. We created the site late 2003 and had no idea that it would become as big as it did. It started off as a blog about the New Zealand Idol competition (our version of American Idol/Pop Idol) and we used pMachine software to handle the site. When the numbers started to grow, we quickly added in forums and other community features. However, the site out-grew the software’s features and it was time to make a switch.

After a lot of looking, we chose to use Drupal - it’s incredibly flexible, is open source and coded in my favourite language, PHP.

Not only did we want to switch software, but we wanted to freshen up the design. The design part was easy, making the move to a new content management system when you have a huge amount of content to switch proved to take a lot more time.

We’re really happy with the result and the community seems to be enjoying the new features. More importantly for us, the site is easier to manage and maintain!

Peter over at Almost Cool asks if blog design really matter.

We all know design counts. Packaging makes a difference. So why are so many bloggers packaging truffles as though they were no-name baked beans?

I’m a huge promoter of blogging for business. But only under appropriate conditions. Blogs can have a huge impact on a brand That impact can be negative.

This is especially true of the hundreds of blog experts who are popping up all over the place. Don’t they realize how poorly their messages come across? How can you be an expert when you’re ignoring one of the prime rules: packaging sells. All the marketing and PR knowledge in the world isn’t going to help you if we pass over your content.

The funny thing is, some of the blogs I go back to reading time and time again have awful designs. In fact, so awful that I’m only still reading them thanks to the wonders of feed readers. I wonder how many others stop reading or are put off because of the poor design.

On the other hand, all the beautiful designs in the world aren’t enough to redeem your blog if you just don’t write anything of interest, or substance or originality ever. It’s about a combination of the two. Does your blog’s design reflect the type of image you’re wanting to portray in your content? Design matters and so does content.