I’m not gonna lie, as a reader of books and blogs, a blogger myself, and especially as an artist, aesthetics matter to me. They matter to me for blogs and for books. They just do. They’re the first thing you see. Like clothes and makeup, book covers and blog aesthetics are often symbolic of the message you want to convey to the world. As an artist, I’m often hyper aware of how things look and the care placed into them. So this is what I think about blog aesthetics and book covers.
Blogs
If I’m being honest, nice blog design is the first thing that will make me stop and notice you mid blog hop. I can’t help it! Not only do good looking blogs draw my attention because, well, they’re pretty, but they also tell me that you care about me in a certain way. They say, “I thought about you enough to want you to enjoy this experience.” So I see blog design as a critically important component of your blog. Just what do I look for in good blog design?
Accessible And Easy To Navigate!
This is the most important point for me. I cannot stress this enough. Your blog design NEEDS to be accessible. It NEEDS to be easy to understand and navigate. Don’t have your menu in funny, hard to find place. Don’t clog your sidebar with 34,568,009,876,543 unnecessary thing and put the important stuff at the bottom. Don’t make it hard for me as a viewer. The easier your blog is to navigate, the more inclined I’ll be to explore.
Crisp And Clean
Don’t clutter your sidebar. Don’t have distracting things flashing at me from all over the screen. Use simple colors or a nice ombre that don’t distract from text as your background. These are just a few examples of how I think you can make your blog design tighter. A crisp, clean blog means that it’s easy to view and easy on the eyes and doesn’t assault your senses. It just makes it easier for readers to focus on what matters: your content.
Infused With A Bit Of Personality
Get creative! Let me see a bit of you in your designs? Are you loud and colorful? Or maybe sophisticated and classy? SHOW IT TO ME! Personality makes you stand out from a crown of blogs and adds that special something to your blog!
Books
Books are a lot harder to pinpoint what I like because I like many different styles of covers. The only thing I can point out as something I dislike is if it looks like an amateur took to Photoshop and designed your cover. Getting creative and bold with fonts and placements always draws my eye. As I’m an artist, I am often aware that the book cover usually is symbolic of the book in some way–it’s shows off certain elements, symbols, themes, and/or messages that the designer thinks is important to the story. That’s why book covers are so important to me. Because when done right they can give you hints to the story.
So that’s it for today! I hope you enjoyed and I’ll see you all on the flip side!
Interesting points! I have to admit that aesthetics will always be one of the first things that I look at before looking any further into something. I won’t judge it based upon it alone, but I know that an ugly and eye-repelling layout for books or blogs will surely make me feel like I’m burdening myself instead of enjoying it! Great post! 😛
– Lashaan
thanks! that’s a pretty good point about it feeling like work.
This post was a lot of fun to read! 🙂 worse than an amateur Photoshop cover though, is amateur PAINT covers 😫 I don’t know if those covers are actually made in Paint but they do look that way lol
Ooooo *winces*. That sounds bad, lol!
This post was a lot of fun to read! 🙂 worse than an amateur Photoshop cover though, is amateur PAINT covers 😫 I don’t know if those covers are actually made in Paint but they do look that way lol
Ooooo *winces*. That sounds bad, lol!
I love this! I know it’s bad to judge a book by it’s cover, but it’s the thing that’s supposed to lure you in! I can’t stand covers with people on them, especially when you can see their face. It just looks so poorly done! Like a bad movie poster!
Very true! I don’t mind people on the cover, but I can see how they *can* go *very* wrong, lol!
I love this! I know it’s bad to judge a book by it’s cover, but it’s the thing that’s supposed to lure you in! I can’t stand covers with people on them, especially when you can see their face. It just looks so poorly done! Like a bad movie poster!
Very true! I don’t mind people on the cover, but I can see how they *can* go *very* wrong, lol!