The results of this year's Web Log Awards are in. My favorite blog by Andrew Sullivan won "Best Blog of 2008". Nice. (Sadly, Jungle Jil was not up for consideration this year. A cruel oversight by the nominating committee if there ever was one.)
Here's a fun one though: The newly-created Best Blog Design award. I love layout and page design and the intersection of function, simplicity, style, and information in one place. (That used to be my metier back in Manhattan.) This year's inaugural winner, OurWorld 2.0, is a fantastic example of gorgeous simplicity matched with fabulous style and superb functionality.
Update:
I figured I would critique the other contestants.
The second place winner, Inhabitat, in my opinion is a mess and not even a close contender. Learn these few pointers please: (1) Clutter sucks, (2) your color palette should have 3 maybe 4 colors in it, (3) make sure that your page is less than 1000 pixels wide, (4) big bold photos and small text in every blog post really de-emphasizes what has been written... if it isn't ignored altogether.
Third place was SnappedShot, which was okay if a bit simple. I certainly wouldn't consider it noteworthy for its design. Based on the finalists, dark gray seems to be de rigeur this year. Meh.
Fourth place was Babyology. Flashing gifs and menu selections with their own individual garish color choices? This was a nominee? Sheesh. Ugliest of all of them, bar none.
Fifth place went to Rin-Wendy. I actually like this: I didn't read it, but it's apparently a his-and-her blog. Rin gets the blue half and Wendy gets the pink half, and the "margin" stuff goes down the middle. Clever, and well done.
Sixth place is the Pink Yellow Media Blog. Those burnt-orange paint splotches are very high-school art class. More dark gray. Nothing special about this blog's design at all.
Seventh is The Old State. I give this blog credit on two different fronts: First off, it's quite daring in designing itself like the microfiche version of an 1870's newspaper, and second, they did it all within the confines of Blogger's standard layout template. It's not particularly good-looking to my eye, but it gets points for style.
Eighth place is Shots On The House. This should have done much better... but given that this is a "who can send the most readers to vote for me" contest, it doesn't really matter. There's some good functionality here, and a simple layout that still manages to get a lot of information up on the screen. However, the graphic design is weak and the washed-out brown and brick-red color combination was popular... oh... round about the time I started blogging (as you can tell).
Ninth place is Veerle's Blog. It should have been tenth: Dark gray with dark pink text... totally unreadable. Bright colored ads yank at your vision while you're reading. The main banner doesn't mix at all with the rest of the page. My blog looks better than this, and I'm not saying my blog looks good.
Last place is Home Design Find. This is quite a pretty blog really, with the various shades of aquamarine and complimentary greens and grays working very well together. Not much in the way of functionality, although I like the subtle mouseovers at the top.
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