Blog Design 101 | Get Inspired

I've been on this blog design kick ever since my husband, Micah, got me a Blog Design E-Course over at A Beautiful Mess. My blog has been changed around numerous times after going through the E-Course because there are SO much you can do with it! I figured since I found it so great, especially for new bloggers such as myself, that I would share some of the things that helped me with creating my own personal blog into something magical!

Okay, first thing's first: Create a Pinterest. This is serious folks. You wanna talk about organized inspiration? This is where it'll happen.

Create 3 pin boards and label them the following:

Color Inspiration

+

Design Inspiration

+

Font Inspiration

---------------------------------------------

Color Inspiration:

+ Color is an important part of your blog design. It's important to consider the types of photos that will often appear in your content column and how your blog layout will compliment them. For lovelywordsofpam, I chose a mix of colors that are rich and warm. I know at this stage these are the base colors I want to use for the banner and sidebar elements, with a good amount of white space. These colors compliment the types of photos that will appear on the blog which are airy and often feminine.

Design Inspiration:

+ I chose three design elements I feel will fit nicely with my blog design. First, floral: This element is essential because my blog design is very feminine, so I wanted to use some frilly accents in there to make it pop! Next, pastel colors: Pretty color in small doses is a great way to create an interesting blog design without the overall look becoming too busy! Another element I want to incorporate is consistent circles. Call me biased but it's my favorite shape and it looks really cool against a white background. 

Font Inspiration:

+ I will admit to spending hours and hours browsing dafont.com for the perfect fonts for almost everything. I'm a little obsessed with typography for someone who has terrible penmanship. For lovelywordsofpam I was inspired by a few bold fonts, a messy cursive font and some handwritten styles. I liked how a lot of my inspiration pieces mixed these different font types together. 

+ When choosing fonts for any blog it's best to limit yourself to 2-3 fonts to use for your design and content. Using too many fonts is just like using too much color—it can become busy and chaotic. Make sure you take note of which fonts you end up making your "default" fonts so that you're not using 50 different ones. 

-----------------------------------

These will be your organized "inspiration boards". Now being the search! Pin everything that catches your eye and make sure it's YOU! Edit until you have a look that you would want for you website.  Take as much time as you need, this is an important part of the design process and should not be rushed. 

HOMEWORK: Write about what you love and how the overall look makes you feel for each inspiration board. 

Soon, I'll update with some more ways to make your blog look amazing! Good luck :)