A few weeks ago I ran an offer where I would give 5 free tips on anyone’s blog’s design. The offer went down very well, and I’d like to share some of what I have learnt so far.
Every design is unique of course, however, there are some small flaws that I found to be common across quite a number of blogs.
The 5 Pointers
- Take care with your logo. A fast-loading blog is important, but not everything is worth forsaking for its sake. In particular, a lot of bloggers have compressed their banner images to a point where pixelation around the letters is noticeable. Your logo is too important for this.
- Remove the "Delivered by FeedBurner" text. FeedBurner offer a great RSS to Email service, but the text link that they add into the copy & paste code should be deleted. It’s completely legal, and they get enough advertising in your chicklet, URL and email pop-up window.
- Experiment with different colors. I’m a little sick of seeing black&white, blue&white and recognizably theme-default colors. Experiment more! There are a lot of color tools online that can help you out here.
- Customize your comments. Comments seem to be fairly unappreciated. They certainly aren’t a crucial element of your design, and something simple will do. However, far too many blogs have comment forms that were clearly taken from the WordPress default theme. That little lapse of effort is a real shame.
- Don’t have a boring sidebar. You wouldn’t have a wall of text for a post, so why allow it in your sidebar? Be sure to break up your sidebar with images and ample padding. The sheer number of text links on some blogs is incredible.
Those are some of the most common pointers that I’ve given out. What other little annoyances do you find to be common amongst blogs?
PS – For all those who sent in request for tips at the time, I will get to you! I just didn’t realize how long it would take to write these all…
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Sumesh (39 comments)14 November 07
I’ve done all 4 except #3. Problem is,when you spend time on theme, the time for writing decreases, which is worse than having a normal theme. People care about writings more than the desing(unless you have very poor design).
As for #1, I’ve got the CSS ready for feedcount plugin. For #2, I dont use the form, just the link!
For #4, I’ve added border colour change to the comment field on :hover and :focus.
#5 worries me a lot, blog authors just don’t feel clutter is bad. I’ve seen some amateur designers’ blogs having poor sidebar. That speaks volumes about their design skills
Elliott Cross (16 comments)14 November 07
Some more great tips, as I wasn’t aware of the feedburner text link and will check it.
Thanks for taking the time doing all of this, I’m sure you are busy with the reviews still, but I wanted to say thank you again for my review.
Best wishes!
pelf (32 comments)14 November 07
Err.. I don’t have a logo..
David Airey (55 comments)14 November 07
Great pointers, Michael.
I should re-optimise my blog headers, as I think I can make my logo appear more sharp.
Deaf Musician (5 comments)14 November 07
My comment form is cool, my logo is sharp, my rss button is unique, no boring sidebar, I don’t use email thing (maybe I should). But I got all 4 that are applicable! Yay! By the way, what is it about your blog that makes me comment on almost every post. Amazing.
Deron Sizemore (34 comments)14 November 07
Good tips there Michael. #5 may apply to me. I don’t have a mix of images and text, but at the same time, to me, it doesn’t look to all to boring. Maybe someone else may see it differently.
Good post.
Michael Martin (1285 comments)14 November 07
Sumesh – In theory, I agree about the time. However, in practice I’m not so sure. Most of us procastrinate much more than we should, and having a purpose like this will be using up the procastrination time. It may cut into your writing time a little, but not too much. Not for something simple like this.
Elliot – No problem. I’m glad you liked it.
Pelf – lol – Well you have no reason to worry about #1 then.
Seriously though, a good logo is great for branding. However, far fewer blogs have logos than you think. How many just have fancy text? 
(Which can still be good!)
David – I think you could as well. The image is only 10kb at the minute, so at most, I doubt sharpening would take it beyond 15-20, which is still great!
Deaf Musician – lol – Sounds like your blog has no problems then!
Deron – I don’t think it applies to you either. You may not have any images, but you do have a lot of padding and colored headers. It doesn’t feel anywhere near as heavy as some of the blogs I’ve seen.
Deron Sizemore (34 comments)14 November 07
Thanks Michael! Glad you concur (had my fingers crossed)
Yeah, even though it’s not really heavy right now, I’m getting the itch to redo it and make it even more minimalistic. I have to ignore this itch for the time being as I have other more important sites to design and develop, but maybe here soon I’ll get around to a redesign.
Thanks Michael.
goldfries (81 comments)15 November 07
So Michael, are you going to change the “Leave a Reply” and “Submit Comment” any time zoon?
Another thing Michael, instead of the word “LOGO” – how about using the word “HEADER” or “HEADER IMAGE” or something.
Not everyone has logo BUT a good header works just as well.
Michael Martine (1 comments)15 November 07
Guilty of #5, but new design coming in a few months. Great point on #1… really, you’re worth it. Big color trend right now: green is the new blue, for the first time ever. I do like it myself.
kristarella (141 comments)15 November 07
I’m somewhat conscious of #1. I don’t know if anyone else can see it, but I can see that the text is a bit fuzzier than the tree. (Now everyone is going to be able to see it!) It’s because I had to import the image of the text from GIMP to Inkscape because Inkscape wasn’t using the font properly.
Maybe if I go Inkscape to GIMP it will be more even.
kristarella (141 comments)15 November 07
Sumesh, I don’t want to come across as rude, but with no direct method of contact on your blog this seemed as good a place as any – please take a look at these two screenshots 1, 2. They were taken on my mac in Camino and Firefox.
You’re right that writing is important, but when the elements of a blog appear to be unintentionally in the wrong places (mainly the header in this case) I usually don’t bother to read the text.
Blogging For Money (1 comments)15 November 07
I think I’ve implemented them all but 3 – I love my white, light blue, teal, and orange! I know it’s just a slightly customized free theme but I do adore it.
Oh, and I’m still working on number 4, improving my comments. Great article!
Madhur Kapoor (12 comments)15 November 07
Nice tips buddy.I havent had much luck with logo as i am not a good designer but i will give it a go .
scott fish (1 comments)15 November 07
Good point about having a good logo. I might add that many sites use a logo but make it part of the header graphic. Make a smaller version and make that accessible so that when people want to reference your site, they have a usable logo ready.
Pinyo (5 comments)15 November 07
No logo here either, but these are really good tips. Thanks for sharing Michael.
Grant McAllister (2 comments)15 November 07
This is the website i have been looking for.
Im Grant, 15 from scotland. I enjoy designing websites and learning new things. Im currently learning to design good site aswell as PHP to develop them.
Im glad i found this site.
good post aswell
Blogging Tools (1 comments)15 November 07
good tips and post, surprised you dont have a bigger logo
Michael Martin (1285 comments)16 November 07
Deron – lol – That temptation never really leaves.
Goldfries – Probably not to be honest. This comment form doesn’t look like the original, so it doesn’t matter that it has a few traits left over. I’m not advocating that everyone’s forms be completely different; just different enough.
But yes, you’re right about the headers. I was using the words interchangeably up there; I should have taken more care with that.
Michael – Looking forward to seeing that!
Kristarella – I hadn’t spotted it before, but now that you mention it, I can see that (Mostly on the curves/bowl of the letters). It’s a shame that it’s just a technical problem causing that.
Blogging for Money – lol – Then there’s no need to change it! I only meant when people are using a color scheme simply because their theme came like that.
Madhur – They’re awkward, certainly (I’d definitely say that logo design is my weakest area!). But if you get an idea, just sketch it out on paper, and then work on recreating that in Illustrator/Photoshop. You might surprise yourself (Or alternatively, you might find someone who could do it for ya.
)
Scott – That’s true. A logo is very brandable, and they’re handy because they’re small. It’s nice to have an image like that, that you can use when referencing another site.
Pinyo – No problem. Seems a lot of people are like that.
Grant – Glad you found it then! Does that mean I can expect a few more comments on future posts then?
Blogging Tools – I wanted a pretty compact header, which would let the content start very high up the page. That’s what led me to a pretty small logo.
(Though I still think that it does the trick well enough)
Mohsin (28 comments)17 November 07
Good points.
I’ve also seen some blogs using horrible typography in the main content area. Comic Sans as your main font? Come on!
Michael Martin (1285 comments)17 November 07
Agreed Mohsin. A bad font can make the whole blog a pain to read.
Jen / domestika (2 comments)17 November 07
Gotta love a good checklist!
Michael, I just wanted to say thanks again (in a public way, in case anyone was in any doubt about the total fabulousness of your 5 Tips offer and fine self, coff coff) — so great to have the benefit of the designer’s insightful eye!
I was able to implement 2.5 of the 5 tips almost immediately, and have carefully filed away the others for those long dark winter evenings, when I plan to tackle a major redesign. This “bonus” checklist will go into the same project file — thoroughly bookmarked as are so many of your posts…
Michael Martin (1285 comments)17 November 07
Hey Jen – Thanks for that!
And yep, I saw those changes. Glad you took the advice on board. In particular, I noticed that everything lined up now. Nicely done!
Jen / domestika (2 comments)17 November 07
MM, your advice is gold to me. But did you hear echoes of unladylike language while I was template-wrestling over here?
Michael Martin (1285 comments)17 November 07
Naa, never. You were the very definition of respectfulness and patience.
Chuck (1 comments)20 November 07
Great article. It’s appeal, at least for people like me, is to see if we have made any of your mistakes. I need to work on my logo…
Forrest (25 comments)21 November 07
I hope I’m following these … I don’t have a logo per se, and I’m not sure about the side bar after reading this. But I’ve put a lot of effort into the blog itself, and generally find myself agreeing with these ‘rules’ …
Michael Martin (1285 comments)21 November 07
Chuck – Logos are always difficult.
Forrest – Your sidebar looks good. The indented category list is great. One tip might be to have the monthly archives list hidden by default (Like the meta section), and changing the 3 red drops that act as the drop-down button into a downwards arrow. What would ya think of that?
McRye (1 comments)24 November 07
The pointers are very useful. Thanks a lot!
Forrest (25 comments)26 November 07
First, thanks!
You’re right about the archives being hidden by default; that’s probably a better idea than the meta section. ( Allows easier access to the RSS links… )
And you’re probably right about changing the [...] hide link into some type of icon to indicate a drop down. I had tried + and – and this seemed like an improvement, but thanks for giving me an idea to go a step further.
Oh, and the indented category list is actually an out of the box WordPress feature. I hesitate to mention that because people tell me mine is unique … but I just went through each category and assigned parents as necessary. It turns out that’s great for usability, in that people can click a parent category and see posts that aren’t filed directly under it, but in one of its children. I guess that could be a good thing or a bad thing, but at least the way I’ve got mine set up it’s helpful.
Michael Martin (1285 comments)27 November 07
Forrest – No problem. Thanks for actually taking the advice on board.
As for the categories, the functionality is definitely there by default, but very few people make use of it. And even fewer actually display that indentation visually.
I wrote a post mentioning how good an indented category list was way back at the start of PBD. It’s a great thing to have.
Pinny Cohen (1 comments)26 December 07
Great post, I would add #6 as having a custom design to make your site memorable and have a higher perceived value of information.
Michael Martin (1285 comments)27 December 07
That’s definitely something I would recommend, but it’s quite a big step for most people. The tips I’ve listed were things that a person could quite easily try right now.
Nicolas Alexander (1 comments)5 February 08
“”‘ve done all 4 except #3. Problem is,when you spend time on theme, the
time for writing decreases, which is worse than having a normal theme.
People care about writings more than the desing(unless you have very
poor design).”’-unless your blog is about design
Sandy R (2 comments)14 February 08
I’m planning on having a nice corporate logo but I am having trouble deciding on which logo design site to choose. There are so many of these online design services on the web. I’ve checked most of the sites and their portfolios are good (LogoDesignCreation.com, LogoWorks and the likes) I’m hoping to hear some feedbacks; maybe some of you have certain experience in dealing with this kind of service.
Michael Martin (1285 comments)16 February 08
Nicolas,
lol – True. The design of a design blog will never be good enough. The bar gets raised up every single day.
Sandy,
I’m no expert on logo design, but I can definitely give some advice. If you know exactly what you want (e.g. The exact icon design you’re after), then LogoDesignCreation looks great (They’re cheap, and have a nice portfolio. If you explain very clearly what you’re after, then you’ll get it), but if you aren’t sure exactly what you’d like, LogoWorks would be better, but much more expensive ($300 at the cheapest).
If you’re willing to spend big money like that though, you should check out David Airey as well. He’s a friend of mine, so I may be a little biased, but he does make great logos.
Sandy R (2 comments)19 February 08
Thanks Michael for your advice. I decided to follow your suggestion and I went with LogoDesignCreation. I was beyond amazed and happy how they manage to provide me with exactly what I wanted. The logo designs are very iconic and fresh. Wonderfully fast (got my initial concepts the following day) and yes, perfectly priced.
I would use their design services again when the need arises. Thanks again. Highly recommended to those who needs a logo design on a tight budget.
Michael Martin (1285 comments)19 February 08
Sandy,
Glad to hear you were so pleased with them. I’ll keep them bookmarked for future reference.
Pete White (6 comments)3 April 08
I’ve found the colour lovers site to be a great resource for colour schemes.
Michael Martin (1285 comments)3 April 08
Pete,
Agreed. It’s an awesome site, but a little slow to load sometimes.
Maverick Lee (1 comments)24 August 08
I found your site through searching for blogging tips. I’m a newbie on this in fact I just started today, and have decided to use wordpress. Following your first advice I’ve tried taking care of the logo part, although it’s not yet permanent. Michael, I would just like to ask how important the site description is and what specific theme could you recommend for a newbie like me? I found this great theme but I’m still trying to figure out how to make it work for me. Although my friend said that choosing a theme is also a critical part, since some themes are not search engine optimized. I’m not quite sure what that means just yet but well, anyway, great site and great articles. More power to you!