The design of a blog is not something you can just throw out of your mind. Important factors are the beautifulness itself and readability. I say, you must find the happy medium between these two.
In this showcase I want to show examples of good designs in anime blogs. It are not neccessarly sites I visit or read often, but which I respect. (I still read some of them though).
Simple
Simple doesn’t mean bad — to the contrary, an old russian saying tells “brevity is the sister of talent”.
Low on Hit Points
The best simple blog design I’ve ever seen. Very clever whitespace usage, nice colour scheme and a good font choice.
Ramblings of Darkmirage
Simple. Not as simple as Low on Hit Points but still. I like the rounded corners and the stripes combination.
Normal
Ehm. Haven’t found another heading for this category. Anyway, not simple, not grungy. Something in the middle.
Shameful Otaku Secret
Good font, nice techniques, cute girl at the header. A contrasting colour scheme completes the impression.
Sea Slugs! Anime Blog
Based on the Thematic Framework, unrecognisable from the default theme. I like to visit it now and then.
Grunge
One of my favourite categories. I know I couple of non-anime websites with such a great hand-drawn/grunge styles, but it’s off-topic here. Not many aniblogs use the style.
HappySoda
I’m always speechless when I’m trying to describe HappySoda. Many webdesign ideas, what else?
That’s it. I’m sure there are more nice blogs, but it’s my Top 5. For justice purposes my site wasn’t included into it by the way. But I’m deserving a place there, right? However, I hope that you will get inspiration, ideas and whatever.
Loading ...
8 Comments
My personal favorite is the design of Ramblings of Dark Mirage. I dunno why. Theres some magic going on that design.
Maybe. My favourite is the top one, Low on Hit Points.
Glad you like how my site looks, but unlike the others mine is just a barely modified theme that I bought, if that makes a difference.
Hmm. I didn’t found any theme credits, neither in the footer nor in the CSS, so I suppose nobody knows it except us two. And because I never seen this theme before, for me it’s original enough. Conclusion: makes no difference.
I really like HappySoda’s design, too, the paper feel is something we don’t see very often in the digital realm.
Well, ok, “in the aniblogosphere” would be still more right. There are quite a lot grunge/hand-drawn websites with paper textures. Practically all of them belong to the Web Designer Realm.
The most paper-feel-ful is the Web Designer Wall I think.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’m a bit late noticing this now, but thanks for the shout out.
I think — as far as site design goes — that how the text looks is priority number 1. At least for a site like mine, where the main draw is the written word. Getting the right amount of spacing is priority #2. Color is also an important factor, but it’s hard to coordinate when you’re uploading pictures that could have any color scheme. That’s why I just stuck with white!
I’ve actually been refining my site’s design for years, well before I even had a site up! I’ve been tweaking my current one all the time. My goal is to keep it as clean as possible so that it can remain focused on its purpose and not on its looks.
As far as “inspiration,” I browse The Best Designs quite a bit:
http://thebestdesigns.com/
Better late than never! ^__^
Well, I can’t said your design is my favourite as every site I listed here is one. But I think it’s enough that you’re one of my favourites.
Yes, your relationship with text inspired me to make this concrete current design. And that’s what I thank you for.
You know, I’m also working on my blog design since 2006… ^__^ I’m an extreme individualist and can’t see a shared theme on my site…
A nice directory, there are some very interesting pieces. I wonder if they’ll accept my submission. ^__^’