27 Reasons Why I Love To Learn From These 10 Famous Blogs

I’ve been blogging since a year ago, and this one is my second blog. I have learned from so many blogs that I’ve seen and bookmarked several blogs that I like so much. On this post, I’m going to share about several blogs that I follow & Some reasons why I follow them.

If you are careful enough, there are some elements that I learn from my lists here, especially about web design,  that has been applied on my blog. I hope that you can learn from them & be better in the future. I made this post to share some of what great blogs have & hope that you will apply some of their positive aspects.

I have reasons for every blog I like and learned from it. I have a total of 28 reasons from these 10 blogs. Some of them may be the same, but you can see uniqueness of every blog from my description below.

Almost all of them are member of Smashing Networks, a high quality blog networks created by Smashing Magazine. It indicates most of these blogs are high quality blogs that has something to learn.

1. Smashing Share

Smashing Share is one of my close friend in my blogging world. The main writer, Waheed Akhtar is Freelance Web Designer from Dubai – United Arab Emirates (U.A.E).

Reasons why I love Smashing Share:

1. Wide space – not so many blogs that serves you with wide area like Smashing Share. Of course, this is not suitable for any visitors that don’t have wide resolution on their monitor.
2. Smashing Hits – Smashing Share provides some of his famous post on his sidebar which name is Smashing Hits.
3. Clean Layout - Smashing Share has a clean layout which makes me feel easy and convenient to read all of his content. It also uses Myriad Pro font that is rare to be seen on other blog.
4. Large & Visible RSS & Twitter Button – Smashing Share has visible RSS & Twitter button at the top right of its sidebar. It makes visitors easy to subscribe.

2. Hongkiat

Hongkiat.com is managed by Lim Hongkiat, Malaysian professional blogger who is currently lives in Singapore. He is one of the most frequent blog I visit since the first time I entered blogging world. I learn a lot from him about writing style & how to design nice buttons to attract visitors.

Reasons why I love Hongkiat:

1. Tabbed Most Popular, Recently Published & Active Topics – They are tabbed together which saves space & more effective.
2. Unique Button & Banner Design – I realize that Hongkiat often use Futura font for most of his banner and buttons. He also uses unique font style for most of his banner.
3. Mini Updates – This is the same as Smashing Hit on Smashing Share. Hongkiat did this with different style.
4. Border Bottom – What I mean is, Hongkiat uses border bottom for his title inside an article to emphasize what he is going to share. Image below is an examples about how he uses border bottom. This is one of my favorite style of him.

How Hongkiat uses border bottom

3. 1stwebdesigner

At the first time I visit 1swebdesinger, I didn’t see anything special. But then, I realize that this blog is wonderful. Even with very ordinary and standard layout, he has over 40.000 subscribers! Wow… I was really amazed, so I follow him from that time until now and I became one of his writer now. 1stwebdesigner is owned by Dainis Graveris, Latvian blogger and his editor, Saad Bassi, Pakistan web developer who runs windows8geek as his personal blog.

Reasons why I love 1stwebdesinger:

1. Friendly – 1stwebdesigner accepts everybody who wants to write for him. Is you see his writers list, you will see around 40 writers there! It means that this blog is very strong. It will continuously update because so many people wants to write for him.
2. Tabbed Random Posts, Archive, Calendar & Recent Posts – This is the same as Hongkiat, but different composition.

4. Onextrapixel

Onextrapixel is managed by Terrance Huang and Charlotte Lam. Most articles are written by Aidan Huang, a Web enthusiast and blogger who is fascinated by the vivid design and technology world, . He is also a front-end Web developer who strongly believes in sharing exciting and noteworthy information with the community.

Onextrapixel has very neat layout & has so many high quality contents inside. One unique fact that i found here is three columns 125px ads on his sidebar. Usually, other blogs only provide two columns for 125px ads. This three columns 125px ads enables him to place more space for advertiser to market their products.

Reasons why I love Onextrapixel:

1. Unique Logo – Onextrapixel has unique logo which is looks like a lollypop. I like it, although I don’t know the real meaning of its logo. Maybe it just represents letter O.
2. Wide Space – Just like Smashing Share, Onextrapixel comes with wide space which is fit for wide images and wide space of ads. With wide space, it will be more flexible to do anything there.
3. Soft Color – Onextrapixel comes with variety of background. most of them are soft color, which makes me convenient to read articles there.

5. InstantShift

InstantShift is one of my favorite blog which is run by Daniel Adams. Not like other usual blog, InstantShift covers so many categories includes “articles” categories which is about everything outside design related categories.

Reasons why I love InstantShift:

1. Very Neat Layout – I love InstatShift layout. It’s very convenient to read the content. With only two main color, it’s very nice for a minimalist style blog.
2. Portrait Image Title – Not so many blogs use portrait style for its image title. InstantShift comes with different style that makes it diferent from others. Very good idea.
3. Large User News Area – InstantShift enables its readers to submit their news which are featured on its homepage. InstantShift features 10 user news at the same time.
4. Nice Brand Icon – Look at InstantShift brand icon. It’s very nice.

6. Tutorial9

Tutorial9 is one of my favorite blog too. It is run by David Legett, American professional blogger. Tutorial9 comes with different & very nice web design which makes me smile when visiting his blog.

Reasons why I love Tutorial9:

1. Great Web Design – I can’t describe it here. Just visit him and see how wonderful his web design is. I also love his sidebar style – you can see it on image below.
2. Featured Content - I like his featured content. It displays 5 featured articles and changes its image every a few seconds. Very nice.

7. Speckyboy

Speckyboy is run by Paul Andrew. I love its layout. It’s very simple, minimalist & simple. One of its uniqueness is the sidebar. He places the sidebar on the left side, despite usual right sidebar we usually see at other blogs.

Reasons why I love Speckyboy:

1. Neat layout – His layout is very neat which makes convenient to read articles there.
2. Border Top – This is similar with border top of Hongkiat, but borders are used at the top of sentences. I also use this style for my blog now. Look at image below.

How Speckyboy uses border top

8. Psdtuts+

Psdtuts+ is definitely one of the best Photoshop tutorial blogs in this world. Great layout, so many subscribers, so many features there. I always want to be like Psdtuts+ because it is very excellent on every aspects.

Psdtuts+ is run by Envato, a website which makes awesome websites.Envato operates Marketplaces, Communities, Blogs & Educational Sites & reach hundreds of thousands of visitors everyday and are well loved around the world.

Reasons why I love Psdtuts+:

1. High quality articles - You can prove this by visiting Psdtuts+. Every categories are filled with high quality articles. I’m so amazed with how they maintain their quality of articles that is written there. Seems one of the best I’ve seen.
2. Great layout design – Simple & Minimalist. Uses only a few colors, but looks very nice. This is one of the best layout that I ever seen. Even some web designers had tried to make similar layout of Psdtuts+.

9. Web Designer Depot

Web Designer Depot is one of the most colorful blog that I’ve ever seen. You can prove it by visiting Web Designer Depot here. Although it has nice & colorful background, it doesn’t show its categories at homepage. I can’t find categories list on its homepage, making its navigation harder than other blogs.

Reasons why I love Web Designer Depot:

1. Wonderful header & footer - You can see that Web Designer Depot has colorful and wonderful header and footer. Not so many blogs do this for their header and footer.
2. Popular Post - Web Designer Depot displays its popular post at sidebar with image thumbnail on it. Not so many blog do this. Its very nice.

10. Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine is one of the best graphic design blog & community.Smashing Magazine is run by Smashing Media GmbH, which primary business is this magazine. Smashing Magazine has so many features that other blogs don’t have. They have forum, job board, smashing network & smashing cartoon. In fact, they are very innovative and creative.

Reasons why I love Smashing Magazine:

1. High Quality Articles – This is the same as Psdtuts+, they has so many high quality & useful articles.
2. Unique Features – As I mentioned before, they have forum, job board, smashing network & smashing cartoon.
3. Smashing Networks – This is one of unique features that I like. Smashing Networks contains RSS Feed of so many high quality articles from high quality blogs.

Conclusion

I want to apologize if I made a mistake about everything I mention on this article. I just want to share everything I’ve learned all this time & hope that you should learn from other blogger to make sure that  you maintain & improve you quality of blog. If there is a false information about everything here, you may contact me & I will fix them immediately.

Image Credit – Title Image : Web Designer Depot

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