Comments on: Case study: How blog design contributed to Blogsolid’s success

By: Miriam

Miriam — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:07:36 +0000

Hi Scott – I know what you’re saying about the visibility of white on dark, but I think he did manage to get away with it, especially since he’s a designer and the design is a crucial part of the blog.

By: Scott Frangos

Scott Frangos — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 06:22:07 +0000

Hi Imar -

I agree that BlogSolid’s design is somewhat unique and great to look at. But it’s hard to read. In fact, all studies show that “reverse type” (light type on a dark background), slows down reading by 30% or more. See this article:
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200608/light_text_on_dark_background_vs_readability/

And a blog has reading as a primary goal. So I’m not sure why the designer chose to go that route. Otherwise, I think it’s a nice design, and wish him/her more success.

Yours, Scott

By: 10 New Blogged Articles You Have to Read | The Fatty Talks by Adam Hirsch

10 New Blogged Articles You Have to Read | The Fatty Talks by Adam Hirsch — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:29:50 +0000

[...] Case study: How blog design contributed to Blogsolid’s success (Wordpress Garage) [...]

By: Miriam

Miriam — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 11:54:51 +0000

Ryan – you love the WPG design (besides the header)? Really? REALLY?

Maybe I’m just sick of looking at it all the time. I feel like it’s time for a change. I’m customizing another theme with “fall” colors for the new season. I feel like the Gap or something – “check out our new fall line…”

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:47:32 +0000

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that my own site is NOT a good example of design It’s just a template I plucked off the web.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:43:13 +0000

That’s an interesting site you’ve linked to there. I love blogs with interesting designs, I view so many of them that anything slightly out of the norm is a nice change of scenery. It also looks a lot more professional when they’re not just a knock off template. I’m not a design expert though so am unlikely to create something that beautiful

I love the WordPressGarage.com design though, it just needs a new header. Your current header looks a little naff IMO.

By: Miriam

Miriam — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:16:57 +0000

Hi Imar,

I once referred to someone as a he and “he” turned out to be a “she,” so now I’m really careful about that!

I had a similar with experience with another site that we launched. It reached digg’s home page on the first day of launch, bringing in 30,000 visitors in 24 hours!! Needless to say, the servers all crashed, so who knows how many visitors we would have gotten had we stayed up! But like your site, even though the number of visitors has gone down, the onslaught from digg helped raise the daily visits on a consistent basis.

Good luck with your blog!

By: Imar

Imar — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:40:34 +0000

Hi
thanks for linking to blogsolid.
Blog design certainly is a very relevant topic!
Some extra info for your case study:
Blogsolid received over 16000 unique visitors in the first month. Over 80% of the visits were generated by referring sites such as design galleries. I had to increase my bandwidth to 10Gigs to accommodate the traffic. Visits are down a lot in my second month but i did manage to gain some subscribers during the boom. Oh, and I am a guy