Want to start a design blog? It helps to draw inspiration from the best design blogs. In this blog post, I’m going to show you how to start a design blog first. Then, I’ll share my personal list of the best design blogs.
How to start a design blog
If you have a passion for design, consider starting a design blog. There are plenty of benefits to blogging, from personal satisfaction to financial reasons. I put together a list of the best reasons to start a blog if you’re still unsure.
Ready to get started? Here are 4 simple steps for getting your new blog off the ground.
Choose a blog name
First things first. Choose a name for your blog. Pick something catchy and make sure the matching .com domain name is available. I created a guide for choosing a blog name here.
Get your blog online
I recommend using HostGator to host your blog. you’ll get a free domain name and the WordPress blogging platform will be installed.
Design your blog
To design your blog, choose a blog theme like the Astra Pro theme. It’s the blog theme I use and recommend. They have a bunch of starter templates to help you craft a beautiful design for your blog.
Write blog posts
It’s time to get to blogging! To start, write your about me page and then your first blog post. Not sure what else to write about? Use my handy list of blog post ideas here. And be sure to use my blog post checklist before you hit publish.
28 best design blogs (interior design, home design, and graphic design)
Blog design is an important component of running a successful and profitable blog. While content is still king, a well-designed blog can allow content to truly shine. But where do you learn about design? From the best design blogs, of course.
On this list, I put together the best interior design blogs, home design blogs, and graphic design blogs. Plus, it doesn’t hurt they all have amazing blog designs, too.
Canva’s Design School
Canva is a popular graphic design tool that allows users to create beautifully designed business cards, social media graphics, and more. Their program allows users to create professional-looking pieces without needing professional-level design skills.
Canva’s Design School offers graphic design tips on their blog. Like many graphic design blogs, the design of the blog is light and whimsical. They use bright pops of colors to highlight information. The blog uses grids and compelling photos to help promote the information shared by Canva’s Design School.
Their online courses, tutorials, and tips allow users to learn the skills they need to create designs for their business.
500px
There’s no mistaking what the 500px blog is about when you land on their home page. At the top of their blog’s home page, they feature a large, high-definition photo that leads to their latest blog post. Below their giant leading image are images and descriptions of other recent articles.
Each article has a compelling featured image, leading to an article about photography for photographers. They help photographers build their skills by sharing interviews, trends, and tips. Their featured resources will help photographers of all skill levels build the skills necessary to take truly stunning photos.
Abduzeedo
Abduzeedo, abbreviated as abdz, started as a personal blog in 2006. Its creator, Fabio Sasso, opened it up as a digital publication that accepted pieces from writers about design, photography, UX, and other related topics. The site’s minimalistic design allows users to focus on the content provided by the website.
Abduzeedo’s black and white design gives off a newspaper-like feel. The simple navigation tools allow users to find information on topics that interest them.
AIGA Eye on Design
Upon arriving on the Eye on Design website, the viewer is immediately drawn in by the bright salmon and white design. This blog uses these bright colors, high-quality feature photos, and a grid design to provide viewers with a great reading experience. Eye on Design offers blog posts about graphic design, branding, books, magazines, illustration, digital design, and typography.
In addition to their free blog content, they also offer community events, a newsletter, and videos to help designers improve their craft.
A Beautiful Mess
Elsie and Emma provide readers with inspiration for crafts and décor along with recipes, advice, and style. Their lifestyle blog has a clean and easy-to-navigate layout. Small accents of color and compelling photos allow their creative side to shine.
In addition to their lifestyle content, these sisters provide courses to help other women shine online.
The Book Design Blog
The Book Design Blog celebrates the beauty of book, zine, and editorial design. Their blog’s home page uses black text on a white background and large photos to draw the reader in. Large text, featured photos, and book designs show readers what they are all about.
For graphic designers who work on book cover designs, this blog offers inspiration by exploring the merits of well-designed book covers. Articles about design also look to help designers continue to improve their craft.
Brit + Co
Brit + Co uses warm colors to welcome their viewers. While good content can be lost in bright colors, Brit + Co uses warm colors in a way that enhances their content. Their bright colors are combined with a simple and user-friendly design that allows viewers to find exactly what they’re looking for.
This website provides content about beauty, fashion, food, relationships, women’s issues, and more. In addition to their free blog content, they offer classes, podcasts, and guides to help women reach their potential.
Charity: Water
Charity: Water is a blog that focuses on promoting charities that bring clean water to individuals in need. At the top of their page is a link to their donation page. Because private donors cover their operating costs, 100% of every donation goes to helping provide clean water to those in need.
The blog’s simple design allows you to scroll through the content of each post in one continuous scroll. Each post is thoughtfully written and contains lots of photos to help communicate the importance of their clean water mission.
Creative Bloq
Creative Bloq is a website that offers art and design inspiration. Their simple layout offers a compelling, magazine-like feel. Black, white, and gray combine with small red-orange accents to keep things engaging without being overwhelming.
Creative Bloq’s front page offers links to their latest and most popular content, making it easy for returning viewers to find new information. They offer news, inspiration, how-to guides, features, reviews, buying guides, and more to help inform artists of all kinds.
Designhill
Designhill is a creative marketplace that has helped customers get over five million custom designs. Their website design brings bold shades of blue and gripping photos to present information to buyers and designers.
While they do not have a blog section of their website, they offer lots of content to browse, much like users would browse through a blog’s content. This information allows buyers to find designers for their business projects.
Design Clever
Jonathan Ring and Bethany Baker are the team behind one of the best design blogs, Design Clever. One of the first things you’ll notice when you go to Design Clever’s website is their use of imagery to communicate with viewers. They bring design-related content to users through their highly visual blog.
The home page of their blog contains a large grid containing pictures that showcase talented designers from around the world. Design Clever’s beauty is in their simplicity. They allow the art to do the speaking with their beautifully simple website design.
Design Milk
It makes sense that a blog about design would have a well-designed website. This blog shares daily content about design, allowing designers to get inspiration and learn new skills. They regularly feature designers, and their shop sells things designed by artists around the world.
Their simple layout makes Design Milk’s blog easy to navigate, allowing readers to easily find what they’re looking for.
Digital Arts
Digital Arts is a UK-based blog that uses eye-catching blocks of pink and black to draw in the reader. Their website offers information and education on graphic design, animation, video creation, web design, and more. Because their website offers information about website design, it should be no surprise that their design is both appealing to the eye and easy to navigate.
For those interested in graphic design, Digital Arts provides tutorials, reviews, and guides.
Dribbble
Dribbble is a blog that showcases creative work from design professionals around the world. They hope to pair talented designers with individuals looking to hire a graphic designer. Dribbble’s web design pairs featured images with hot pink and gray accents. This simple and user-friendly website allows graphic designers to sharpen their skills while finding work.
Dribbble offers a job board to help talented designers find full-time and part-time jobs. Featured artists share their work in the areas of animation, branding, illustration, print, product design, typography, and web design.
Eyeswoon
Eyeswoon is a lifestyle blog by Athena Calderone. This blog focuses on food, design, and living and presents information in a visually pleasing way. The simple and elegant design combines white with mauve tones. Featured photos incorporated into this sleek design work to tell the viewer that what they’re looking at is appealing.
In addition to free content on her blog, Athena has written and published a cookbook and an interior design book, which can be purchased from her website. Eyeswoon also sells paint, home décor, cooking supplies, and more through the blog’s shop.
Goodwill Industries International
Goodwill is a charity that offers training and jobs to those with disabilities. While not a blog about design, I wanted to include them in this list because of their great blog design.
The Goodwill blog uses its signature blue and white brand and touching photos in a grid layout. This clean and simple layout allows readers to browse articles easily.
Their thrift shops provide bargain finds to buyers and secure jobs for employees. They share updates about their charitable work, ideas for what to do with thrift store finds, stories about individuals doing great work in their communities, and more. This feel-good blog will keep you scrolling for more.
Grain Edit
This unique blog explores design work from 1950-1970, allowing designers to learn from this period’s work in history. The blog’s home page has a layout that reminds viewers of newspapers, with the blog’s title at the top and featured blog posts along the side. Menu options along the top of the website allow readers to find the information most relevant to their search.
Grain Edit’s blog has articles, interviews, vintage design magazines, posters, and other pieces to help designers find inspiration.
Innocent Drinks
Innocent Drinks is a UK-based blog that focuses on helping businesses do some good in the world. They started by selling smoothies at a music festival. After the positive response, they decided to start selling smoothies full-time. With their website, they seek to empower other small business owners to create profitable and good solutions for the earth
Their blog uses a simple timeline layout to share information with readers. Their whimsical logo and playful typography offer a distinctive reading experience.
Readers on their blog will find information about their smoothie business, recycling, inclusion, and diversity. Innocent Drinks seeks to improve the world around them through their smoothies and their online presence.
Inspiration Grid
This captivating website inspires designers, artists, and photographers. Their website’s content is organized into a grid, making it easy to quickly scan through content to find what inspires you. While the art is the primary focus of their website, Inspiration Grid’s website uses a blog design that only works to enhance the potential for inspiration. The longer the user is on the website, the more creative work they discover.
Inspiration Grid also offers information for graphic designers, web creators, and other professionals who incorporate artistic elements into their work.
Just Creative
Just Creative is a blog run by Jacob Cass, whose goal is to help business owners grow their business and increase their impact. The website uses shades of hot pink and gray on a white background to offer a unique and compelling brand appearance. With a navigation bar running across the top of the website, Just Creative is easy to navigate.
This website offers information to help business owners create compelling brands that will capture the public’s imagination. Jacob Cass offers his services to business owners for those who don’t have the time to create their own brand. He combines brand identity with brand strategy to create a plan that will best suit your business.
Logo Design Love
Logo Design Love is a blog that focuses on brand logos and other visual identities. Their home page features their logo and a grid of photos over a white background. Their photo grid includes photos with a gray overlay and white article title text. Together, the photos in the grid offer a distinctive brand identity to Logo Design Love’s blog.
In addition to their website, Logo Design Love sells a book by the same name. These resources help graphic designers to learn more about creating logos and other visual brand identities.
Old Brand New
Old Brand New is a studio that specializes in design, art direction, branding, photography, and brand partnerships. Their blog, run by Dabito, offers inspiration and styling guides for homes. The first thing a viewer is likely to notice when landing on the blog is their mesmeric blog logo along the top center of the page. This brightly colored and animated logo gives readers a sense that this is an artistic blog.
This blog clearly communicates its artistic identity with simple navigation along the top and brightly colored and engaging photos for each blog post. Whether casual readers or professional interior designers, visitors to the blog will find ideas and inspiration for styling their home’s spaces.
Onextrapixel
Onextrapixel is a blog that helps designers and artists push and expand their skills. Their blog design features bold colors on a white background, bringing the best of bold design and readability. While many blogs use stock photos as featured images for their posts, Onextrapixel uses illustrations instead.
This blog offers tips for design, inspiration, and freebies to graphic designers of all experience levels. Through affiliate programs, they offer discounted services to their readers. Based in Singapore, this graphic design blog seeks to make the web a better place for everyone.
Pando
Pando does a great job of incorporating their brand colors and a simple, elegant design. Their website shares information about the startup cycle, offering information and commentary on various topics related to modern business. Using their brand palette throughout the website offers a cohesive and clearly branded website to their viewers.
In addition to blog content, Pando shares interviews with successful leaders in the business world.
ScienceSoft
ScienceSoft offers content to help business people create websites that will drive business success. Their content related to professional software development pairs well with their blue and white blog layout. Each blog post has compelling graphics created in their brand colors, adding to the overall professional appearance of ScienceSoft’s website.
Smashing Magazine
It’s hard to miss Smashing Magazine’s bright red and white layout. With bright accents of blue, orange, and purple used throughout their design, they create a viewing experience that is both fun and engaging.
Smashing Magazine provides information for users interested in design usability, SEO, UX, and more. In addition to free content on the blog, they offer guides, books, and workshops to help readers level up their skills.
Webdesigner Depot
Webdesigner Depot is one of the best design blogs that provide content related to the web design industry. Their website design leads with a burst of bright colors on a black background, drawing the viewer in.
The blog offers free fonts and other resources to help web designers. Webdesigner Depot has nearly half a million subscribers who get exclusive access to freebies and news about the site.
Women of Graphic Design
The Women of Graphic Design blog highlights the contributions of women in the field of graphic design. This blog uses a flowing grid to share its latest features on the home page. A hamburger menu in the top left corner allows users to search for keywords, look through the archives, and find information in the site’s resources.
In addition to highlighting female graphic designers, the website explores issues related to gender equality in the education provided by design institutions.
Wrapping it up
So, what did you think of the list of the best design blogs? I tried to put together this list to give you ideas and inspiration so you can build your own design blog. Whether it’s interior design, home design, or graphic design, there’s never been a better time than now to launch a blog of your own.
Until next time,
Edwin, DoSixFigures.com
