It is often said that content is king, still, conscious people around insist that layout and design for you blog/site is essential.
In fact, I think this is no contradiction at all, no monarch can keep the throne without proper garment.
As some others in this blog, this post started as a comment on someone else’s blog, and became too big and needed more room.
In this case, I was reading a nice post by Chris Garret, about blog branding.
It seems that many people rely on the “Content is King” concept to overlook proper visual for its blog. After all, if Content is King, why the need of fancy design? Is not the design you want people to come to your blog for.
Design is support (I’ve said this before). I am a designer as much as a programmer and I support this theory with no shame.
After all, what is a king without a crown and a sceptre? In this case, typography, layout and color seem to fit the role just well.
There are many examples of analogous situations in real life. The job interview is one of them, but then, on different point of view, how would you feel going to a restaurant with excellent food served in rather ugly and damaged plates and cutlery.
It certainly doesn’t affect the food, but would be too pretentious from the chef to feel that the customers that really appreciate the food should not care about that.
Putting obstacles for someone to appreciate your skills, either in the kitchen or writing, is just inadequate. Instead, surround talent with more talent, can’t be but wise.
But is not only about being comfortable, a visual identity is essential to stand out, to look as unique as you want your content to be.
Now, some points I’d like to highlight on content and on design:
- Typography
-
In a romance, you are supposed to read every word from start to end and there is very little hierarchy. Some have titles or chapter names, some don’t even have this.
In a blog, just like in a newspaper, hierarchy of content is essential. Typography is the great ally to make this subtle hierarchy not so subtle.
- Visual Identity
-
Stock layouts are very handy, and a good part of them convey enough quality for the reader to be comfortable, but the question is, will they recognize your site if they end up there by chance again?
By no means, visual should be distractive, but it should be unique enough so you can be remembered, because this is what will make you trustful.
- Grammar
-
For this one I will just quote a great teacher I had years ago, when I was still a computer science student. (It has been a long time since I heard it, so is not an exact quotation)
You don’t use proper grammar so people get impressed on how well you write. You use proper grammar so it can just disappear from the reader’s eyes. You don’t want people to pay attention to your grammar, because the reader only sees the grammar when there are errors. And this is just right, grammar is not to be noticed.
12 Comments
Yup, the king doesn’t just need clothes though (packaging), they also need an army (promotion) :)
@Cris:
Absolutely true. Kings need many things, and they cannot be left alone carrying the kingdom on their shoulders :-)
I remember this class !!!
You should say the example of the dirty glass too
@Flavia:
Lol, yes I should. But I think that would be material for a future post.
Anyway, for those who can read Portuguese, the story of the dirty glass is here.
Brillhant post! Congrats!
Right on!
Content is what matters.
Why waste time and effort on form?
Why worry about minor details
like grammar, orthography, layout,
and typographical conventions?
‘Trouble is, a reader has to
wade through the form
in order to get to the content.
Every time the author offends grammar
or trespasses a typographical convention
(like a space after a punctuation mark
or a capital letter after a period)
he puts a barrier between his content
and the reader.
And readers, as we all know,
are an impatient lot:
they are ready to give up
at the first obstacle.
Hence, instead of
“Putting obstacles for someone
to appreciate your skills is
just inadequate.”
I would say
“Putting obstacles [...]
is just stupid.”
@Pati: Thanks!
@Paulo Feofiloff:
Straight to the point! Thanks for the great comment.
Dear Guilherme,
Fantastic reflection on your article!
Zo’C is a good reference for this subject, as it properly combines content and visual! As I said before, the visual is fabulous – I particulary love the red owl – and articles make me think in a regular basis.
The comments are full of content as well, and I very much agree with Chris Garrett on the importance of promotion of the blog – the army of the king.
I’m far from being an expert on the blogsphere, but as far as I understand, one of the key factor for a blog’s success is SEO.
It’s nice to see a blog full of great content and comments from inteligent readers. It’s quite unusual to see blogs with good content with good form/visual as well and it’s fabulous when you find a blog with both.
But even if you promote your blog with your friends and friends of your friends, you will never have the potential to reach millions of readers if you don’t have the strategic thought of caring about SEO.
Isn’t it fantastic to be one of the first occurences in a google’s search? How many times you skip the first occurences on a google’s search? I would say, almost never. SEO is the powerfull army you need to touch millions of readers.
Besides, I would say, it’s quite important the human promotion – being nice to your readers, answering the comments and estimulating their minds, gathering their simpathy, posting comments on other blogs related to yours, what will promote your thoughts in a strategic oriented way, reaching the right audience.
Managing a blog is quite the same of driving a business: interacting is essential!
Zo’C is still young but I can see all the potential to became a huge success!
xxx,
Anna
@Anna:
Thanks!
Indeed SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is quite a buzzword today and for good reasons but, as you said it yourself, there is the “Human Reader Optimization” as well (has anybody coined this term already?).
Interpersonal relationships are a must-to-have once the blogosphere is actually this: ‘a huge conversation among many people’.
On this regard I am particularly fond of trackback as comments. I truly admire the way Seth Godin has managed to have only trackback comments on his blog.
As usual, Chris Garret has hit the nail on the head, promotion is the great army of the king and in this regard a whole blog about this could be written. In fact, I strongly recommend his for army building purposes.
“Tech site Z-oc.com has written up a simple yet powerful tutorial on how to use Gmail to manage all of your email accounts in one fell swoop.”
http://www.lifehacker.com/
Popularity points increasing!!
@Thiago – Great! It is really a huge thing for this still young site :-) That article has also featured on the Etc blog.
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