CONTENT DESIGN & THINKING

Blog post style: 4 ways to make it memorable

Originally published on Setka.io between 2017-2021 and migrated during 2021/22. Some details may have changed since the original version was published.

What makes your online media resource or blog different from your competitors? Quality content and visuals help. But they’re not enough. Another way to make it stand out is to develop a ‘post style’. The style could include a unique name, memorable typeface and/or images – all of which add value to what you’re creating. Here’s everything you need to know about defining your own post style.

Oleg Uppit

Author

01 What is a post style?

A post style helps attract your ideal audience. Let’s say you have a business media resource. Your readers most likely expect you to have a fairly professional and minimalistic design. However, that shouldn’t stop you from experimenting like Bloomberg Businessweek does.

Style isn’t only about visuals, brand colors, fonts and grids – your content approach is equally important. Your publication name, tone of voice and how you address your audience is also part of your defined style.

02 Why do you need a post style?

Firstly, the main purpose of the post style is to clearly communicate your positioning. It helps the reader quickly understand what your publication is about.

Secondly, good post style is also useful in attracting advertisers, because they look for partners that have a similar look,feel and target audience.

And lastly, post style plays a big part in improving your customer experience. A well-thought-out system of visual communication makes reading and navigating through the site much easier. Great examples of this are cards in Vox – a clever trick of the designers to help readers get through lengthy texts with less effort.

03 What are the key elements of a blog post style?

Less salient, yet no less important, are other elements of your brand style. These are generally defined before the brand has launched. The Setka helps you assemble your own ‘style pack’ composed of these elements.

TYPEFACE DESIGN

Typography rules in online media are far more restrictive than in print, due to certain technological limitations. However, there are a lot of resources that talk about web-fonts. Whether you want to match your logo with your fonts or the other way around, make sure you test all your fonts on different devices.

LINKS DESIGN

Links are probably the element your readers are going to engage with the most. They’ll follow links to read related material, or to check the sources mentioned in the article. Readers usually expect links to be in one of the brand colors. That’s why you should take time to check what the links look like in the text, how they respond to being hovered, and what they look like once they’ve been clicked.

COLOUR CODE

Colour code is a set of brand colors for the background, the text and various other elements.

CAPTIONS

Picture and photo captions represent yet another type of visual information for which a special font may be chosen. Still, this is not a must, and italicizing it instead, may be enough.

Large header

Medium header

Small header

Introduction

Here we gathered all the elements of the design identity to show how they look together. Headers of different sizes, blocks with additional information, illustrations, pull quotes and captions create a single system with relationships between all parts – they all help the reader to better perceive information.

A unique name, memorable typeface and images will add value to the style you want to create.

Oleg Uppit

Writer

TOOLBOX

Creating internal communications that truly engage employees has always been important, but it’s become mission-critical in today’s work-from-home world—and a lot of companies worldwide are having to scramble to figure out how to do it right. That’s why we’re so excited to announce the next step in our journey with Microsoft to continue creating solutions together that will improve the internal comms game.

ADDITIONAL BLOCK
This blocks play an important role in the structuring of the text. You can collect the basic information about the speaker of the article or the location

MODULAR GRID

Is a structure for arranging texts and graphic elements on the screen. The grid helps you design complex layouts and ensure a consistent look and feel throughout your publication. We’ve compiled more tips on grids here.

DIVIDERS

Serve to split up the text into separate parts, where no headlines are available.

ICONS

Are an obvious one. If you have an opportunity to design unique ones for your blog that’s great, however there’s nothing wrong with using t appropriate stock icons that fit your style.

04 How do I begin designing my own brand style?

To begin your work on designing your own post style, you will need a clear idea of what your publication is about. Spend time researching your ideal audience and competing publications. Look at the ways that you could clearly communicate your mission, yet not get lost in the noise.

Post style is part of the general strategy of your media resource or blog, therefore your name, logo and tone of voice all need to support your post style. Remember that new content needs to be published fairly regularly, so consider the style of conversation you’re going to be having with your readers, the subscription pattern, etc. Every strategic decision you make may have an impact on the post style.

Creating your brand’s own post style is an involved process that may take a while (our list of essential elements is rather long). But don’t let yourself be daunted by the challenges ahead – the feedback from your first readers is bound to make it quite clear to you which ideas work and which don’t. And don’t shy away from experimenting or introducing changes because your post style is one of the best tools for you to attract readers and make your publication more popular and commercially successful.