First Annual Blogsthetics Award
Yes, I know that the blogosphere needs another award like Washington needs another lobbyist. But for a while now I have wanted to create an award aimed solely at blog aesthetics. What I am shooting for is an award that pays no attention to content, that has as much to do with the blog's reasoned arguments as the Miss Hawaiian Tropic Bikini competition has to do with mental agility. In a world where 1,998,000 out of 2,000,000 blogs are butt-ugly Blogger template jobs with all the charm of a Wal-Mart at 3AM, I would like to reward real creativity.
What I want to do is take your nominations in the comments of this post. Please post links to the blog websites you think have the nicest visual style. I will choose six or eight I like the best, and put them up for a vote. Just to give you an idea, here are a couple I have viewed in the last few hours that I think are attractive in some way. This blog has a pleasing layout. And this blog has a gorgeous header image, though the rest of the layout does not do much for me. Ironically, this blog layout has never done much for me, either, and this site always makes me want to poke my eyeballs out. But you may disagree. Again, please ignore content -- the last thing I need here is some left-right flamefest.
As a second competition, because everyone seems to like the flameouts more than the successes (just look at the popularity of the American Idol episodes where they show the total losers) I will also accept nominations for the worst blog look and feel. Is there a blog out there you think has a "face made for RSS"? You can nominate it too!
Kyle Markley:
Is it considered poor form to self-nominate for the ugly award?
January 3, 2007, 1:22 amKyle Bennett:
Warren,
Thanks for the props, but I'm not sure I qualify. That's just a template. All I did was change the colors, add my own header pic, and arrange the pieces of the side bar. This guy:
http://www.vanillamist.com/blog/
gets the real credit for the layout and all the hard part with the PHP and the CSS.
My nomination for best look is Samizdata (another name that is better than either of ours ;-) )
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/
And for the worst - though in layout only, it's a really good blog content wise - is Magnifisyncopathological
http://www.drizzten.com/blog/
January 3, 2007, 7:10 amMichael H.:
My personal favorite for blog design is Sepia Mutiny:
January 3, 2007, 8:31 amhttp://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/
It has several features that make it stand out:
1) they have about 100 banners that randomly rotate (hit the refresh button) and they are very artfully done.
2) they put a little picture of each blogger in the lower corner of each post.
3) they have a tab for news and events
4) they nicely display quotes so they are easy to spot
Most of the design was made by Manish Vij of
http://www.ultrabrown.com/
Another nice blog design is Greatbong:
http://greatbong.net/
He has about 6 rotating banners and they are well-done. He has a nice feature in the comment section: his comments are highlighted in a blue box. Since he gets 50 to 100 comments on each post this is very nice.
His blog layout was design by Saket Vaidya:
http://www.vulturo.com/
His blog layout is very nice also. If you click on the "themes" tab you and change the look of his blog (I think he has 3 choices).
Debbie:
My nominee is http://www.allthingsbeautiful.com. Every post is accompanied by a piece of art. I am lukewarm on the content, but drop by fairly frequently just to see the new art.
January 3, 2007, 9:53 am