I don’t know about you, but how a blog looks factors into how long I stay there. It also causes me to wonder about the owner. Design is directly or subliminally important to a reader.

Personally I’m a minimalist. The less clutter on a blog, the more likely I am to stay and read. I like bold colour and crispness. It is one thing to talk in posts about blog design, it’s another to see it being talked about on a well designed site.

Cre8d-design has just launched a new blog on design for bloggers, potential bloggers and designers called Designer Blogs.

When hunting around for beautifully designed blogs, I’ve noticed that they’re often labours of love - a designer getting complete creative freedom over a site and it’s a very personal reflection of themselves as well.

And that’s one of the key differences between many websites and blogs: they’re intensely personal and as a result we feel more attached to them than other websites. Many of these designers aren’t marketing themselves as blog designers yet, but perhaps more will as the demand for standing out from the rest increases.

Blog designers need to treat blog design as unique works of art. Sure, many of them will end up with a three-column centered layout that looks a lot like many other blogs out there - but it also needs to infuse something of the owner’s personality as well - a visual expression of the tone and topic of their blog.