Blog Design
Filed Under (Blog Lessons) by Jon Hook on 08-06-2008
The Basics
The underlying principle of the design of a weblog is utility and functionality, aimed to contrive for a specific purpose, through planned and systematic graphic representation.
Contrary to the common definition of design, blogosphere defines design as a method to make things work to their best ability, instead of merely enhancing the visual effect.
Design Guidelines
Here we list a set of key guidelines to follow and implement when designing a weblog:
1. Goals and Aims – It is of utmost importance to keep the basic purpose and goals of the weblog in mind. Every aspect of the design, ranging from the frames to colors, is influenced by the basic aim of the weblog.
Whether the purpose is creating awareness or rebuilding an existing weblog for better SEO results, the designer will have to decide on the key elements keeping these objectives in mind.
2. Target Audience – All the factors related to your planned targeted audience play a crucial role in deciding the basic ingredients of the blog design.
Factors such as ethnic background, educational levels, professional aspirations, financial abilities and geographical locations of your target audience should ideally be kept in perspective while finalizing the blog design.
3. Bloggers’ Needs – The blog designer needs to be aware whether the blogger in question has some specific needs such as flexibility to revamp the look for freshness or add some vital updates in future.
In such a scenario, the designer has to provide in-built features allowing scope for further amendments to the design, as per the need.
4. Rough Layouts – It is important for the designer to first draw out wireframes in order to experiment with element placement and layout.
Several programs and software can be used for drawing these wireframes or rough sketches, including the likes of OmniGraffle (mac only). Infact, most of the new weblog designers often commit the blunder of treating this step as redundant and hence skip it. This ultimately adversely affects the whole concept in turn.
5. Build a vision chart – Develop a collection of imagery and put it up all together on a board to see what the visual ideas look like.
Such a mood board should carry an amalgamation of images, colors, type etc. that seem to be in sync with the project in hand. An ideal mood board
should reflect the summary of the idea of the weblog’s design, according to the blogger as well as the designer.
6. Elementary Design – Having dealt with the entire above requirement, it is easy to put together the basic outline of the blog’s design as visualized.
An important requirement at this stage is to ensure that the designer leaves adequate ‘white space’, which refers to the empty space around the individual elements.
7. Take a print – Once you’ve put together an initial draft, take a print and see what the basic design looks like.
At this stage, it’s worthwhile to think how you are going to structure the html of the planned design.
8. HTML and CSS – This stage entails actually working out the HTML code and laying out the CSS guidelines of your design.
Once you’ve done this, you will have a clear estimate whether the original concept of the weblog’s design has a practical viability. Otherwise, a certain amount of tweaking and alteration can be brought in to achieve the desired results.
