Making a blog design visually interesting (1) - Getting started

The first part of this series dealt mainly with just getting started so that you have something to work with. Now that you have something that now resembles a bit like a blog I hope or you need more help than I can give you. If you do, then that is great as we can move on to adding the details that makes the design of a blog interesting.

The following things are what I found to be effective in adding visual interest without being too distracting. Done in the right way it can add a lot to your blog.

1. Cute icons
Adding relevant icons next to links makes it more interesting and likely that the user will notice it and click on it. It is easy to get carried away with this and add an icon everywhere, resist that temptation. Be careful about this and only add icons next to things you want people to actually pay attention to. Too many icons everywhere will undermine the whole point of adding them.

2. Gradients
Gradients work very well on the web in order to give websites more visual interest. Gradients look great next to solid colors because the contrast is even more pronounced. Avoid adding gradients everywhere and use it subtly when you do.

3. Textures
Textures have a similar effect as gradients as it adds interest to otherwise plain color. These can be subtle as well with patterns in the background or more pronounced as in wood background. I like to use some light texture in the backgrounds that is noticeable, but not sticking out too much. You probably already noticed I use it on this blog as well.

4. Color
The way to add visual interest with color is to use it to emphasize some things more than others. A muted color scheme, which is defined by having low saturated colors, is great because when you use a saturated color it really creates a lot of emphasis. There is a lot of ways to go with this, be creative and use the colors to draw the user’s eyes around to what you want them to pay attention to.

5. Images
Large slabs of text is very daunting and a turn off to most readers, especially so online where reading speed has been shown by tests to slow down by about 25%. Adding interesting images in your post can help a lot in this area or using avatars also adds visual interest. In the following example, the design uses a large header that adds a lot of interest and personality. For this blog it works well because of it’s style, but I don’t recommend it to everyone as it only works for certain blogs.

Conclusion
Remember when it comes to adding visual interest and some general flair to your blog that a little goes a long way. Don’t over do it and never ever add blinking backgrounds or animated gifs on your blog; that is so 1997. For a list of resources of where you can find free color schemes, stock images, textures, and icons please check out the blog design cheat sheet.