Most bloggers make their own blog website, which is mostly due to the fact that content management systems are readily and freely available on the Internet. In fact, if you use Google�s Blogger, you can create a blog and put it online with absolutely no cost. However, there are problems with this scenario. Bloggers are not web designers and so are not adept at making websites, which means they often make mistakes that result in ugly looking websites. This article details some of their most horrible design mistakes.
1 - Having a website that looks blocky
This often happens when a content management system is used because they do not allow any sort of overlap in most cases. One element may not overlap another, which is something you may do if you were drawing a design by hand. As a result, the design looks blocky to the point of where if you colored in the page elements then it would look like a Tetris game. This also happens because compatibility issues make it hard to size and resize some elements without them looking odd. This makes bloggers take a more conservative route to their design, which results in it looking blocky.
2 - Frames and boxes (and no overlap)
Frames does not reply to the old fashioned method of web design, but instead refers to the graphical frames and boxes that people put around images and text, or that are used as page elements. One or two may look okay, but it starts to look really ugly if you use too many because they do not overlap. They do not overlap because there are few content management systems that overlap page elements. As a result you see some odd looking and ugly website/blog designs.
If you create a website and frame everything with outlines or frames, then the page will start to look a little bit like a newspaper. The same is true for putting your page elements into boxes. A few is okay, but it if to the point where you are lining them up next to each other, then your website is going to start looking ugly.
3 - Bold colors in abundance
Bold colors are okay if they are used with skill, or if they are small part of a mostly empty or bland looking website design. But, they are hard to look at for extended periods--which makes them terrible for blog posts. They may work great for websites that have kids games on them, but blogs are there for adults and the adults have to look at this visual assault for a long time whilst they are reading your blog posts.
Take a look at other mainstream websites and you will see a web design that has bold patches that are offset by plain or white colors. For example, the PayPal website has very bold blue on it, but the rest of the website is mostly white. Amazon have a similar design that is a little more toned down and orange is used. The Play.com website also uses bold orange that is on top of a mostly white website design.
4 - A horrible and repetitive patterned background
This happens all the time, and the fact is that a blank website background is better looking than a horrible repetitive pattern. This sort of thing is also possible if you have an eBay shop. You may have seen the backgrounds with candy hearts or rose petals. They may look great on Valentine's cards, but they look ugly on blog backgrounds. They have a tacky and cheap look about them as if the back of the blog website has been papered over with cheap wrapping paper.
5 - Horrible graphic fonts and tacky animations
The problem with designing your own website is the fact that it is fun, and this pleasure blinds you to how crappy your work is. That is why people say you should spend about three months away from your work if you want to really see how good it is. It gives your brain time to forget the pleasure associated with the creation process and so makes you more impartial.
Sadly, most people are not able to sit on their designs for three months and so start using their tacky looking designs right away. Things such as big graphics, cartoony graphics and tacky animations all look like great fun on a website, but in reality they are quite ugly. Many times the most simple approach is the best, but keeping things simple is not a fun design process, so people add more and more without realizing they are spoiling their own work.
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