Minimalism is a big craze at the minute. Think for a moment; how many pure white designs did you see online today?

There are good principles underneath this all of course, and most likely you already know them.

Minimalism = Less clutter = Less distractions = More time focusing on the important stuff.

But do all minimalist designs work with this principle in mind? Do you not feel that in some cases, a designer has just thrown a few divs together and dubbed his theme minimalist?

Photo by pshanEvery site has a reason for being online. It has a purpose. Good design takes into account that purpose, and then works towards it.

Site goals are what you want your visitors to do on your site. It is important to make the distinction between what you want, and what they want (Although the two may often overlap).

For instance, your readers may not originally want to sign up to your newsletter, but if you want it enough, you just might persuade them.

The first stage in creating a great design is to lay out your blog’s goals. My advice is to scribble down everything that you would like to gain from your site (RSS readers, advert clicks, sales leads etc.), then take that list and order it by importance. It is important to think this through now because it will make decision making during the actual design much, much easier.

Image by Felipe SkroskiIf you’re reading this, then I imagine you have an interest in blog design. Together, we invest huge amounts of time into tweaking our blogs, or huge amounts of money into paying others to do so. But how do we know our design is actually worth all that effort?

What is it that makes a good blog design?

The 4 Aspects of Good Design

There are many factors, but we can wrap the main ones under 4 umbrellas. These are what I would consider the main elements of a good blog design to be.

1. Achieve Site Goals - What is your purpose for having the blog? What do you want visitors to do?
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