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Until recently I didn’t understand the true meaning of designing my articles. I wrote and hoped my words would be enough to catch the attention of the readers.  It turned out they didn’t. After doing some thinking I have now come to the realization that the layout and images have a central point in getting the visitors interested.

I will take AlistApart as an example. AlistApart is a site that publishes the articles of some of the bigger names in the web developing world. They have an artist doing a watercolor painting to every one of their stories. They all have the same color scheme and are usually of something funny. That means they serve two purposes, making all the articles have pretty much the same color layout and maybe cause some laughs. The images makes the site and articles look like somebody cared about the content and not just the rest of the site design. So what AlistApart does is using the magic technique of quality text, layout and images.

Images of the imagination

Anybody, and I mean anybody, can draw or paint well enough for an article. It’s just about developing a personal style. I mean, just take a look at those modern artists. Can people actually call that art? Yes they can, even though none of it resembles anything in this universe.  And that brings us to the only rule in drawing for an article. The image must have at least something to do with the topic the story is about. It could be far fetched but figured out by the average visitor.

As long as you keep the images to your own style they don’t even have to be in the same color scheme. The visitor will still think all the images look similar to those in your other articles.

Off course you can add regular photos to your articles but there is some magic with self drawn or painted images. In my blog I have decided to have one drawing at the top of every article from now on. It’s definitely worthwhile seeing the result. I have also redesigned the front page to show the title, drawing and a short description for the two latest posts.

Bring colors and styles together

Use some different colors for you headers  and links and suddenly everything will look better. At least if you have some feeling for picking colors that combines in a nice way. When it comes to colors, it doesn’t hurt to be a little innovative. Using bold and Italic can also spice up your text and point out the important parts to the reader. Practice some CSS to design your articles.

By using subheadings regularly in your post you can show the reader that this part is about something else. It’ll also make it easier and more inviting to read. Most visitors just reads the parts of the article that interests them and they’ll find what they’re looking for faster. When writing long texts you need to split it up into pieces.

Show that you care

All the time, you come across blogs which have the potential of being great and still they just strike you as mediocre. In many cases that is not the content that gets the blame and not the overall design of the blog either. It is the layout of the text. Before publishing an article you must think of the text as a part of the design. Does this really look good?

The tips above could make your blog or whatever website you’re running look more like you’ve cared about it and more appealing to the reader.