It’s slow news day, and it’s time for my usual slightly off-topic piece. I love minimal design. Every time I look at my own page it seems too cluttered for my own taste. The thing is, I’ve never really loved reading blogs until the trend of minimal design became predominant (at least when tech-related blogs are concerned). The absence of any superfluous elements enables the reader to completely focus on the content, which is what good blogs should be about anyway.
While we’re on the subject, I’d just like to touch on the theme of reading news in your RSS reader. I don’t do this. It’s boring. I like to look at my favorite sites. I like to interact with the rest of the content on the site, not just a standardized RSS feed. I offer full RSS feeds on this site, and I have nothing against people who never visit the site: it’s about information, anyway. But, sometimes blogs can be designed so well that they simply draw you to read more and more. I think that users who only look at their RSS feed reader are missing out on this.
So, here are my ten favourite minimally designed blogs. Many of these are very well known, so this is not some journey into the unknown - it’s just my tribute to the sites I love and whose design I admire. Screenshots aren’t included on purpose: just go and check out the sites for yourself.
A genius concept, and a very barebone blog make this great little site a good introduction to this list.
Why would you paint your titles with a virtual marker? Because no one else does it. Clever little buggers. Also, I love how the content is subtly divided into three parts with three unobtrusive colors.
Doesn’t look all that minimal at first, but it’s basically sheets of white and gray over a pattern background. Simply changing the background changes the entire visual impression of the site. Cool and simple.
The obvious choice. It doesn’t get much more minimal than this, and there’s almost nothing here that can take your eyes of the text. For people who really like to read.
So minimal, not even the titles stand out.
If there weren’t for that scary head in the upper left corner, this would be just a bunch of text. But, the head makes it instantly recognizable. Simplicity works!
Easy on the eyes. Plus, I like the booze.
A good example how a well designed blog can withstand a couple of ads and still look extremely clean and minimal. The entire visual identity is established with one blue line and one logo in the upper left corner, which manages to double as a search box. Great.
Again: one image, visual identity established. Do we need anything else besides content and a few ads? No. OK then.
Blog of the guy who makes some of the best Wordpress themes, featuring one of them. Instantly makes you want to switch from whatever theme you’re using to it - it’s that cool.
Thanks for compiling the list, I love finding out about other minimalist blogs, especially Bokardo.
I like the minimalist approach. Some sites become so cluttered with “stuff� that it becomes difficult if not impossible to navigate and find what you are looking for. Minimal for blogs is perfect.
@Paul, Spud: glad you enjoyed it. There are many more great minimalist blogs out there, but I guess I like these best because they’re in my scope of interest.
This one is even more minimalistic. It’s a One-A-Day of images, video and games. Without allowing comments it remain SFW. Comments and discussions can be done on the major tagging site.
http://pixelpleasure.googlepages.com
@pixelpleasure: looks more like a service, than a blog. Nevertheless, nice site, thanks for pointing it out.
The only ones? What about Rusty Lime?
Seth Godin’s isn’t really minimalistic, some of those are very nice and make great use of white space ala web 2.0 style
Check this one out, I think it stopped updating but it’s a wonderful blog.
http://www.nastystart.org
photoblog:
http://flickrville.com/
“Every time I look at my own page it seems too cluttered for my own taste.”
Why don’t you try removing the horrible graphics under “Syndicate”… That’s just absolutely hideous.
Check this one out - been hearing about it a lot lately…
…hilarious!
http://thisblogisabomb.blogspot.com
How about 5thirtyone? The site actually runs Google Ads that aren’t in your face. The compiled list is definitely accurate though. Paul’s is a normal read as well.
Now here’s a minimal blog:
http://www.informationarchitects.jp/
That’s my all time favourite. Daring fireball is pretty up there too.
-tim from http://bla.st/
mine is even more minimal, yeah!
http://phl.kontxt.net
Thanks for sharing the list! I love minimalistic blogs too!
those don’t seem minimal to me…. try this one.
http://www.ibiblio.org/esrblog/
Very nice blog post, and it certainly shows that we both share a similar taste when it comes to design. You’ve pointed me in the direction of a couple of blogs that I wasn’t already aware of, that I’ll definately be keeping an eye on.
One that I’ve recently been impressed with is http://www.plaintxt.org/
Where’s the controversy? http://www.theglobalwarminghoax.com/ will handle that for ya.
I totally heart David Seah!!!
Hey great idea listing minimalist weblogs. I submit mine for your consideration. If I made the margins bigger I think it would qualify more than its present look. The next version will be minimalist with images, kind of like staring at one of the rust-stained, concrete walls at the shunned Chernobyl reactor.
http://www.cosmos.net.au/~hologram/
Hahah, wow…not to start a flame war or anything, but out of all of the “minimalist” websites posted here (from the post and the comments) only a small hanful are actually minimalist. I suggest anyone trying to spam their site in here as “minimalist” read up on the subject first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism#Minimalist_design. I guess that’s what happens when you get dugg :).
(PS - “minimalistic” is not a word)
just on the rss…
I use a reader. It’s my way of filtering. Not everything every blog writer I like is of interest to me. I click through what looks interesting and read it on site.
It’s important that rss feeds contain everything… pics, text: I’ll click through and read it on your site.
don
Nice read!
Love the Bonzai blog. thanks!
Check out http://atunu.blogspot.com . I can’t believe the mod this guy has applied to his blogger blog. Yet still it looks as minimalistic and clean as ever.
My colors probably aren’t everyone’s taste, but I’ve been an advocate of the minimalist approach to blog visuals for a long time. I figure you should put the words in the spotlight, because that’s what blogs are about (not saying that mine are of any particular quality.)
The WordPress theme I made is available, too, so you could “fix” those colors for your own
Look at the source of the page for the SVN link to the theme. It’s all at http://rca.snm-hgkz.ch
I just knew, everytime somebody introduces or recommends a blog, the world starts bitching about how his own is so much better, ha! Good blogs I say!! Thanks for the tip.
@everyone: thanks for the suggestions.
and, about “minimalistic” - what can i say, I love making up new words. The word is actually used quite often - but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s not a word, so sorry about that. The title is fixed now.
Nice read!
Love the Bonzai blog. thanks!
@Don: I also use an RSS reader, nothing wrong with that. Well, there’s nothing wrong with reading feeds only in your RSS reader, either. I just wanted to point out that if you never visit the actual sites, you might be missing out.
Great post. I never read your site before today and did so via the RSS reader on my Treo
Though it might not fit many of the genres of sites already listed, mine is also a site of minimalist design: http://mobileministrymagazine.com
Great post.
I like http://tomatic.com a lot. Kottke is a bit old school though.
@Sandy: great find. I love Tomatic. I’ve seen it before, but simply didn’t remember to put it on the list. Although, this list isn’t meant to be a definitive list of any kind: it’s just 10 blogs I love which also have a minimal/unobtrusive design.
I’ve been reading Smashingmagazine.com recently - it’s proved to be a nice magazine about CSS, XHTML and web-development-related stuff.
Check out my site: www.mikkaworks.com , has a very minimalistic feel to it, inspired by japanese style design.
you know it takes a lot of effort to make a minimal website look beautiful. hats off to all of these websites that use so little but look so good.
G.
Don’t forget the always classy Lossless.
http://weblog.lossless.net/
Thanks. these are great. Your site looks cool too.
@Joop: done (;
this one is cool too
http://www.serialflasher.com
Good list, I really like WeBreakStuff.
I think you should check out my new minimalistic blog http://smpl.se . Topics include simple things and simple thoughts. Sample: http://smpl.se/blog/2007/02/28/smpl-glasses/
good nice
Here is one of my favorite
http://www.mofata.com
My own take on a wordpress theme. My first real attempt, but I’ve always loved lots of white space and small fonts.
Oops! I thought my blog’s address would show up after I’d entered in the field. Didn’t realise I had to put it in the body.
http://bh2go.blogspot.com
Binary Bonsai looks good now… but it’s not WordPress! I’m even thinking about switching to it now :/