Beautiful Blogs Part 5
5th edition — by Patrick McNeil — Dec. 3, 2007
The Site Type
Putting together a list of beautiful blogs seems nearly pointless, considering the countless options and a never ending list of potential directions the topic of blog design might go. And yet, at their core they all contain pretty much the same set of content. This set of blogs is rather diverse with a very broad range of topics. One thing all these sites do share is a clean unified design. These designs feel fresh and easy to use. They have managed to overcome one of the primary hurdles for many blogs, clutter. Often times blogs grow frankenstein style, with new widgets or features being attached here and there. As a result the sites grow into sloppy beasts. This is actually what forced the last redesign of Design Meltdown, and which will likely cause the next. The sites featured below have really managed to pull things together and create easy to use designs. Many of them have abandoned some standard blog features like tag clouds.
One notable example is the
fortuitous
site. At first this doesn't even look like a blog. You have to scroll down to realize this is a flow of content and is likely a blog engine under the hoods. Gone is the tag cloud, date listing, latest posts summary's, trendy widgets, and even the whole stinking header! This site defies the typical blog layout. Interestingly the focus on content really draws you in and gets you reading right away. The brand is placed in the footer and really leaves center stage to the content. In fact, this site puts more focus on the content then I have ever seen a blog do. The site has far less brand impact in that the site doesn't stick in the brain for visual purposes. Instead it is intelligent and through content which hooks the reader.
Sample Usage
