The nature of a weblog--a site whose primary content is the periodic postings of (usually) textual material by one or more people, arranged sequentially with the most recent entries appearing first--dictates many of the basic design decisions for such a site. Thus the details are where a blog designer's efforts will be expended. Or not. Today I'll exlore both sides of the question.

I've seen it asserted that there's little room for variety in the overall design of a weblog. On the face of it, the statement seems true. Nearly every blog design consists of a header, sidebars on one or both sides and a middle section with the latest entries running down it in reverse sequential order. The header may contain a picture, a menu, or just text. The sidebars may contain blogrolls, links to related sites, Google or other ads, links to the site's feed in a variety of formats, etc. Throw in a contact form here and a pithy quote there, and you have the basic layout.

But that doesn't mean that all blogs look the same. The devil, or angel, is in the details: an attractive color scheme, a readable color scheme (often very different things!), a color scheme that emphasizes what you wish to emphasize, logical arrangment of elements to make things easy to find, a nice protograph, choice of typeface and type size, the amount of whitespace in various places, text alignment choices, etc. A few little details you'll notice here include the left sidebar being right-aligned, and different indenting for the date, entry titles, and entry text. The color scheme was chosen to match the little icon that appears next to each entry title--the abbot of the CSS Trappist Monastery. As you read a variety of weblogs, look for the little touches that give them their own personality. Then (if you're not satisfied with your blog's current look) consider how you might apply the underlying principles to your design. Adjusting the little details can make all the difference.

Or can it? Is there really no room for drastically different designs in weblogs? I have to believe that there's room for variety. The first variation that comes to my mind is based on something I did on a non-blog webpage: the LDS Singles Network homepage. When you first arrive, the tab that's shown has a "Next feature" link. Click that, and then content of the tab scrolls out to the left, and a new bit of content scrolls in from the right. Couldn't blog entries be shown that way rather than running down the page? And what about the tabs? You'll notice when you click them, your browser doesn't load another page--the new tab just appears. Might there be a reason to use such a tabbed system on a blog? I'd have to think about that one a little more, but I think that if I do, I'll come up with something.

I'm sure there are plenty of major design variations that could be applied to weblogs if we take the time to exercize our imaginations and break out of the box most of us are in. Whether those variations will be improvements is another matter. I believe that some will.