Every year, I change the look and feel of my blog. Sometimes drastically. I’m getting the itch right now. I’m doing my best not to scratch it. If I did scratch it, it would feel so good. But then I’d wish I hadn’t scratched it and it’s within the realm of possibilities I’d immediately change it all back.
Too late. I scratched it. I’ve long wanted to use a monospace font for the body text of my blog. Now, I am. At least until I change it back. How long this lasts is anyone’s guess. Place your bets. There are people who hate monospace fonts on a website. I’m not one of those people. Monospace is what I use when I draft every word I write before it’s published on my blog. It feels like home. Granted, not a huge fan of monospace on mobile devices. But I read blogs on my laptop so I’m doing my best not to look at even my own site on my phone.
Keep your blog design simple
Done well, I admire intricately designed websites. A hobby of mine is viewing these types of sites on One Page Love. At the same time, I love text-only sites and blogs with minimal designs. I can make this blog fancy. But I don’t. I keep it simple. Place a premium on accessibility.
I’d encourage anyone who has a blog or is considering creating one, who views themselves as a writer, to strip away the unnecessary. Make the focus the text on the screen. Not bells and whistles. They distract your readers from the words you’re sharing. If you’re an artist or photographer, this doesn’t apply.
And if I’m being honest, the blogs I enjoy visiting and reading the most are about as plain jane in terms of design as one can get. No thumbnails. Words and hyperlinks only. The occasional photo as a header image but not always. I’m not picky on background color as long as the contrast ratio is accessible. Viewing a blog stripped down in this way is refreshing considering all the overstimulation on the Internet today.
I like big fonts and I cannot lie
My vision isn’t what it used to be. That’s why, up until about ten minutes ago, the fonts on my site were somewhat large. Larger than most use on their blogs. I’ve considered bumping up the font size even further on desktop. The type is much smaller now with the monospace font in place. We’ll see how it goes. Still holding strong at 65 characters per line.
I like to think everyone is aware of the keyboard combo that allows you to increase the font size on a given site when viewing on desktop. Are you? If not, do what I do when I get the urge or if/when I visit a site that makes me squint:
- Command + increases the font size
- Command – reduces the font size
- Command 0 renders the site back to its set default
I own a Mac so we’ve got the Command key along with a Control key. But if you own a Windows PC or Chromebook or whatever else is out there, replace Command with Control.
Goodbye italics
I’m not going to go back into old posts and remove italics, but I think I’m done with italics for 2025 on my blog for new posts, especially if I stick with a monospace font for body text. Italics is unnecessary for accessibility. Screen readers don’t explicitly announce italics for emphasis and the only time, in my opinion, italics looks nice is when it’s within a nice serif font. Italics on a sans serif looks like hot garbage and even worse on monospace.
This may drive someone batty when it comes to book titles and the like (perhaps even me), but get your own blog if it does. This one’s mine.
What do you look for in a blog’s design?
What I like may be different than you. I don’t hold a strong opinion on how the web should be developed and designed, save for ensuring sites meet accessibility standards. My preference is text-heavy, even though it’s been smacked with a negative connotation over the years. I like blue hyperlinks. I don’t care what platform you build on. As long as you’re writing, that’s all that matters in the end. What’s your preference of it all?