In “The Secret of Great Blog Designs,” I talked about using schemas and the peak-end rule to not only make your blog design more memorable, but to also associate your blog with the concepts, images, and ideas that will help you towards your goals. Before we can go deeper into that, we have to first make our blog design POP.

What does it mean to make a blog design POP? A blog design that pops is simply one that grabs people’s attention and can often times evoke a “Wow!” Does it mean that you must make your blog really extreme in order to get noticed? No, it does not, especially if you are doing it just for the sake of getting it noticed. The pursuit of just that one goal alone won’t get your blog design very far.

But if your blog design does not pop at all, it will simply go unnoticed and disappear into the masses of everyday blogs. First we must understand how to make something pop before we go into what we can do to make our blog designs pop. It has been show in studies that humans have two ways of scanning visual elements when they are searching for something.

Parallel processing - This is an automatic and unconscious processing that occurs first and is done by taking everything in at once. It is a very quick and simultaneous processing that uses associations to understand what it is looking at. What that basically means is that you have no control over it and it is done instantly.

Serial processing - This is a very deliberate and conscious processing that we use when parallel processing doesn’t yield the results we want. It is a very slow and sequential processing that uses rules to find things and is done consciously. What that basically means is that if a person is still motivated to find something, they would use this or just give up altogether.

In order to make something pop, we must get it so that the parallel processing picks it up instantly. If it doesn’t pop, then there is no guarantee that a person would put in the effort to look beyond the blog design. They might if they believe that you have what they are looking for somewhere on your blog, if not they will leave.

So how do you make something pop?

Below are 5 simple ways to make your blog design pop with examples of how blogs use it.

1. Color

Colourlovers’ blog is a very good example of using colors to make your individual design elements pop. The blog uses mostly white and grays in their layout, but uses colors here and there to make things pop very well against the muted colors. I like how the RSS buttons pop out at me in a very appealing way. What you can do is experiment with using a color that contrasts with the other colors in your blog in only one or two areas to make a design element pop out.

2. Shape

WebDesignerWall’s background uses interesting shapes that makes the design pop out and draw the user’s attention towards it. Ornate decorations helps make design elements pop out when they are used in the right areas. What you can do is try experimenting with different shapes next to each other. For example, if you use a lot of rounded elements in your design, try using some more angular elements near it to make it pop.

3. Size

Yeah, Darkmotion’s use of a giant bear would constitute a good use of size to make a blog design pop. While I wouldn’t recommend everyone to use a giant bear, try experimenting with different sizes of your blog design’s elements and see if it makes things pop. A common use of size to make something pop is the giant RSS button.

4. Texture

WeLoveWP recently had their website redesigned and the new design uses a lot of texture. The smooth background texture on the left makes a good contrast with the rough texture on the right, which helps make the logo pop even more. The texture also helps make the content pop as well, which makes it even more interesting. A simple way to use texture to make design elements pop is to use gradients next to solid colors.

5. Contrast

The reason why all these simple techniques work was because they made the use of contrast to make their blog design pop. Contrast is a relative term that depends largely on what it is being compared to so it is important when using any of these techniques to make sure you pay attention to the design elements next to it. Don’t forget to check how it interacts with the whole blog design as well.

If you want to learn more about how to make blog designs pop and other cool stuff, then subscribe today for free and get updates that can help you make your blog design be more successful.