ProBlogger links to a post on blog design trends written by Rachel Cunliffe in the cre8d design blog. Cunliffe, in her post, enumerates elements of current blog design trends: big fonts, big headers and footers, top border, bright colors, speech bubble comments, rounded corners, highlighted links.
I won’t go as far as calling it a trend but I get to see more and more sites with neat (some say this is already tiresome) background patterns (slashes, dots, or horizontal lines) and shiny, almost glass-like button interfaces or graphics. And most of the sites using these elements are well-designed and pleasing to the eyes.
Duncan Riley rightly points out in his comment on the Pro-Blogger post that all these design elements won’t make a difference “if the fundamentals aren’t right (ie content).” A good design would just be a facade if you have poor content.
Of the design trends listed in the cre8d blog, I’m partial toward big fonts and highlighted links. Most people spend a lot of time in front of the monitor nowadays and reading small text get to be a strain on the eyes. I find it hard to read text, especially large blocks of text, smaller than 10 points.
I find it easier to read body text set at 12 points. Once in a while I get to visit sites with really small text you’d have to squint while reading it. And after wading through a few paragraphs, that’s the time I’d remember that I could increase the text size by using ctrl plus the mouse wheel in Firefox. This, however, screws up the layout at times because all text elements are rendered larger.
Max is a journalist and blogger based in Cebu. He has written and edited for such publications as The Freeman, The Independent Post, Today, Sun.Star Cebu, Cebu Daily News, Philstar Life, and Rappler.
He is also a mobile app and web developer and co-founded InnoPub Media with his wife Marlen.
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