February 1, 2010 By The Blog Designer Network

Today’s Beautiful Blog is a step back into Blogger-land, but we’ll get back to some beautiful WordPress blogs soon.

Last week I stumbled across Macey’s Daily Parade and just fell in love with the fun, playful yet beautiful design. It is a new look for this blog, run by Macey, and if she’s like me when I get a new design, she is looking at it every chance she gets.

 

Isn’t it just too sweet? Macey’s Daily Parade is about the daily parade that is Macey’s life – thus the cute and appropriate title! After reading a little bit on the blog, I feel like the design suits Macey to a tee. She’s feminine, fun and elegant all at the same time. 

Okay, what I love about this design:

• Calm, soothing colors yet fun and engaging
• Perfect mix of different design elements to match the blogger
• Unique and effective navigation bar (in the balloons)
• Lots of white which is easy on the reader’s eyes
• Clean, uncluttered sidebars

Macey’s design was created by the very talented Jackie at Memories by Design (this is Jackie’s second design to be featured).

Congratulations, Macey, on having such a beautiful blog! I know you’re enjoying your new design and hope you “wear” it for a long while – it’s perfect for you! If you would like to share this feature with  your readers either in a post or on your sidebar, here is a button for you:

Please Note: To see more beautiful blogs, head over to Designs So Pretty, where a beautiful blog is featured almost every day!

January 25, 2010 By The Blog Designer Network

This week’s Beautiful Blog is delicious to look at and read, as it’s a food blog that shares all kind of incredibly yummy recipes. Buns In My Oven, run by Karly, a homeschooling mom of two, is a delightful blog that I stumbled upon last week and since I was wanting to do a WordPress run of blog features, I decided to bump her to the top of the beautiful list.

What I love about Buns In My Oven:

• Design is attractive but not too busy
• Background color is unusual but pleasing to the eye
• Blog loads quickly
• Clean, uncluttered sidebar
• Very functional navigation or menu bar that seems like it’s incorporated into the header
• Great content; posts filled with beautiful, helpful pictures

An added plus to Buns In My Oven is that Karly used an awesome camera and lens to take her fabulous food shots. If you enjoy photography, this blog will satisfy the camera bug in you as well as your sweet tooth.

Now, the designer who created the fun and functional look for Buns In My Oven’s is Temptation Designs. They offer designs for Blogger, WordPress and Twitter, so head over there if you like what they did for Karly.

Congratulations, Karly, for having such a beautiful blog! If you would like to share this feature with your readers, here is a button for you:

Please Note: To see more beautiful blogs, head over to Designs So Pretty, where a beautiful blog is featured almost every day!

February 6, 2012 By The Blog Designer Network

We are excited to announce the implementation of the Showcase, which features the best in blog and web design!  Whether you’re a designer or blogger in search of inspiration, this page will be the ultimate place to find great design using any platform.

1.  How are designs chosen?

We browse the web in search of great design, and pick the sites we like best.  From graphics to code – everything is considered and every platform is fair game.

2.  What criteria must be met?

The design can use any platform, but we prefer WordPress, Blogger, Squarespace, and Typepad.  Obscene or profane sites won’t be listed.  In each showcase submission, we link to the designer, the site itself, and identify the platform in which the design was built – so if any of those change we may not keep the design listed.

3.  Do I have to submit a design to be considered?

Nope, we keep a close eye on great design so you may just find a design or two of yours in here.  If you find one that you’d rather have us remove, just let us know and we’d be happy to remove it!

4.  How can I make sure my design gets in the showcase?

You can read our Tips for Showcase Submissions page, where we briefly cover things we look for in great design.  Then you can e-mail us via our contact form, or tweet @the_bdn or use the hashtag #BDNdesign.

Good luck, and have fun finding and creating great design!

May 1, 2011 By The Blog Designer Network

Whether you’re a seasoned typography nerd, or just getting started in the biz – choosing fonts is one of the best aspects of design.  As you continue to tap into the fonts provided by Photoshop or Illustrator and search online for typography to download, a “sixth-sense” starts to emerge.  Suddenly every logo, every letter printed on a pizza box, number on your cell phone, ampersand on a billboard – piques your interest.  Eventually you’ll find yourself easily identifying said fonts.  Usually aloud.  To your significant other…your children…your eye-doctor when he asks you to read the “third line” from the top.

We’re going to call this the “font-dar.”  It’s like “radar” only more geeky.

Of course not all fonts faces can be easily memorized (but we can sure try), so it’s easy to see unfamiliar typography in familiar places!  But there’s an easy and awesome solution.

It’s called What the Font

Simply upload the image of your font and identify the highlighted letter!

Found at a retail store on a lotion bottle.

Font:  Miss Lee Gates

Found on a menu at a restaurant.

Font:  Sensual Bold

Pretty awesome huh?  Go try it!

Note:  The links to the above site are non-affiliate links and the BDN is not compensated for suggesting this site.  It’s simply awesome.

April 3, 2011 By The Blog Designer Network

Deluxe Designs specializes in blog and graphic design. We design personal and professional blogs including craft, mommy, photography, small business, and fashion blogs, but certainly do not limit ourselves to these. Using the Blogger platform, we provide user-friendly and finished looking design templates and work with you from beginning to end. Visit us to learn about other services such as Facebook welcome pages, logo design, Etsy, business branding and more. We love clean and elegant styles!

February 15, 2010 By The Blog Designer Network Last week I asked for readers to share blogs they thought were beautiful and if they would like to write a guest post at BBD. Bekah was the only one who took me up on the offer, and she has done an wonderful job!

Guest post by Bekah from The Word Crafter

This week’s Beautiful Blog feature is Aspire, a blog formed a little over a year ago by a thirteen-year-old girl named Hannah. It’s a place where she shares her musings on her faith, her daily routine, and her life.

What I (a follower since it was first started) love about Aspire:

• The background is simple, but elegant and a fun design.
• Engaging and personal posts that keep you coming back to read more.
• It’s easy to read—white background, organized sidebars.
• Aspire is very organized and efficient, with a navigational bar in the header, and archives and labels near the top of the sidebars.
• The site loads quickly.
• Tag line in the header so that you know immediately what the blog is about.
• Follower gadget is up on the top of the page, so it makes it very easy to sign up as a Follower.

Her posts have lots of variety, which keeps the blog interesting and fun. Hannah designed her own blog, being self-taught in html code and design. She also has designed my own blog, and made countless blog buttons for others.

From Amanda:

Congratulations, Hannah, on having such a beautiful blog and beautiful followers who love you! If you would like to share this feature with your readers, here is a button for a post or sidebar.

Thank you, Bekah, for sharing Aspire with us. You are also a talented young blogger, and I am glad to have met you!

Please Note: To see more beautiful blogs, head over to Designs So Pretty, where a beautiful blog is featured almost every day!

Here you can find a list of various design shops around the web. From blog and web templates, to digital scrapbooking kits, and even print material.

To link your shop, provide the URL of the SHOP page on your site with a corresponding graphic. (You may link more than one shop on your site as long as they have different items.)

October 18, 2010 By The Blog Designer Network

What better way to start renew our Beautiful Blog Series here at our new home at WordPress.org than by featuring a WP.org blog! 😉

The blog we are featuring this week is Just Thauna, a blog that covers the “thoughts, musings, passions, protests, journeys, discoveries and other stuff” that makes her Thauna.

I came across Just Thauna because she wrote a post about one of my Photoshop Elements actions and shared the link with me. When I visited her site, I just fell in love! And, honestly, it’s no wonder her blog is so beautiful, turns out she runs a blog design business, Design by Thauna!

What I love about Just Thauna:

1. Simple yet unique and engaging design.
2. Wonderful tagline that helps you know right off what the blog is about.
3. Great use of a navbar and menus; very helpful to readers.
4. Organized, tidy sidebars and footer.
5. Content broken into bite sized chunks and use of easy to read fonts.
6. Contact information provided and easy to locate.

Thauna, you have created a gorgeous blog and it is definitely is a good advertisement for your design business!

February 27, 2012 By The Blog Designer Network

February’s featured designer is Lindsay at Happy Potamus Designs!

Hi! I’m Lindsay, a graphic designer and owner of Happy Potamus Designs. I’m also a stay-at-home-mom to a wonderful daughter and am so happy that I get to stay home with her and still do what I love. At Happy Potamus, I specialize in custom blog designs, invitations, announcements, and more. Creating custom designs for each unique client and bringing their ideas to life is one of my favorite things about my business. In my “free” time (which is usually called nap time for the little one), I love making all kinds of crafty things as another creative outlet and sharing my projects on my blog, Artsy-Fartsy Mama.
I am so grateful to be featured at The Blog Designer Network, and I wouldn’t be here without my fantastic clients!

Here is what some of her former clients had to say in their nominations.

When I decided to get a new blog design, I didn’t give a second thought to the blog designer I was going to use! I had seen some the other fabulous designs by Lindsay at Happy Potamus Designs and knew she was extremely talented, but she really outdid herself when she created my blog design! I gave her a few very random ideas about what I wanted on my new design, but I really wasn’t sure what I wanted exactly. Well, somehow, she did! It was PERFECT the very first time! I knew she would do a great job, but I had no idea it would turn out this fabulous! She is super-sweet and so easy to work with! Her rates are also extremely reasonable! Lindsay is definitely who I am going to continue to use for any other design work I need in the future! — Crystal, Homemaker In Heels

I chose to hire Lindsay to redesign my blog after seeing all the amazing things she’s done for other’s blogs! She has been really great in working with me to come up with something that really embodied my personality, as well as my two girls, who inspired my blog, “vanilla bean girls.” She has been a complete joy to work with, and I absolutely love my new blog design, and my readers have been going nuts over it! Lindsay also just participated in my birthday bash giveaway in which she’s giving away a new blog design to our lucky winner! I can’t believe what a generous and talented lady she is!! — Ellie Perez, Vanilla Bean Girls

She did such a great job achieving my vision for my photography site. She is creative, kind, and easy to work with. — Angela McAllister, Angela McAllister Photography

Here are some examples of Lindsay’s work!

You can follow Happy Potamus Designs on Facebook  and be sure to check out her design site too!

If you are interested in the nomination process, or would like to nominate your blog designer – please read this post and fill out the corresponding form. Thank you!

Below is a list of current blog design giveaways and sales from around the web!  If you’re a blog designer, feel free to add your information in a comment!

Criteria:

1.  Paste the URL of the perma-link where people can find your sale in the comment form. 2. Include details of what you are giving away. (Fine print not necessary.) 3. Include dates that the sale is valid. (2 weeks or less.)

4. Cannot be a promo code or ongoing promotion. (Click “Get Listed” for details on how to get permanently listed.)

The BDN accepts no responsibility for the validity of promos. Get full details on provided links!