Doing some preliminary research before wireframing a corporate blog, I’m struck by the tiny number of truly visually innovative blogs out there. I suppose designers don’t know development and developers don’t know design, limiting the fancies to print and the clevers to ugly little bricks of content. As someone who blogs, designs, and does a little development, I declare this to be the most hypocritical entry ever.
Anyhow, I found some examples of two crossing over from time to time:
Coudal - Oh Coudal, Coudal I love you! Coudal’s modern font-families and clever structure keep it fresh-looking on many screens and totally AWESOME on even more.
Subtraction - The guy behind new Onion and NYtimes redesigns (if you don’t like’em, shut up), Khoi sure puts together a fancy site out of a couple lines and some Arial.
Shaun Inman - Great layout choices.
Airbag recently change their main graphic, a decision I disagree with, but kept most of the layout that’s been up for years. While this could use a little updating, it still looks fantastic.
Joshua Ink - More design than forethought here…this is little more than a list of entries, titles, and Delicious links….but man, what a design.
Jeff Croft - Croft’s blog is my model for innovative use of content in a blog. Finally, something that looks like it was built from a wishlist instead of a list of constraints. This one really shines on the articles.
Veerle’s blog - Awesome. Note: The h1 font on subpages is Century Gothic. ON THE INTERNET.
The Big Noob - I love that ruled-line effect.
Odds and Ends - Great way to display updating photos.
31three - This guy designed my favorite church site.
A List Apart - Of course. For some reason, my favorite thing is still the rollover on the issue number.
What Do I Know - Starting to show its age, but I love the adjustible sizes/layout buttons.
Chris J. David - Sort of a mash of some of the best modern features (”The Kitchen Sink” is something I see a lot these days), but I feel like there’s not enough contrast of size on this.
Avalonstar - It took me a second to figure out what was going on, but this design is really sophisticated.
Jason Santa Maria - Great site, but don’t look at it on a wide monitor.
Superfluous Banter - Yet another ‘kitchen sink’ bottom bar. I love these.
Derek Powazek - This works surprisingly well.
I can’t wait to check these out– I noticed you listed some of my favorites, so we have the same taste.
I’m sort of sad the bottom catch-all area is popular, because (seriously) when I did it for my site, I thought I was being clever. I’d never seen it used to that degree anywhere, and I was like, “BRILLIANT IDEA! Let’s just shove all the boring sidebar stuff to the bottom since NO ONE ELSE IS DOING IT!” Aw. Sigh.
PS: I owe you an email. I actually haven’t forgotten about it– my webmail has been acting weird for almost four days now. I’ll probably just have to MySpace message you or something if it continues… Sad, for it to come down to MySpace.
Yeah, but everyone’s bottom-bars are unique. You’re still an early adopter!
For some horrible reason, I’m considering putting mine right/off-page.
Hm. I’ll have to log in to Myspace now, I guess. Maybe I can add some songs to my profile! OH BOY