Redesigning is kind of new trends with blogs. As Smashing Magazine, Mashable &  larger number of other blogs are redesigning their blogs with some stunning new looks & user experience. I noticed that old design of these blogs was also good & that made me think that people can use their old designs in more than one way.

This idea came to me few days back, when I found blog post on a famous design blog that gave sneak peek of their new design. I felt current design of that website was also pretty awesome. I quickly made a comment on the post suggesting him that he should donate his old design to new & upcoming bloggers which can help them in some way.

So following is the list what bloggers can do with their old design, rather than completely scraping them of.

1. Donate to new bloggers or to non-profit organizations.

Photo by Mindful One’s

Donating is a good option as they will not only appreciate, but will also mention your good deed by telling their audience about it. This will bring good traffic to your blog, and also you will earn good karma for it.

2. Auction your old designs.

Auctioning is other option bloggers should try doing it with their old design as there are many people who would want an ownership on the design which has been known by people for long time. Either you can completely auction the old design or you can sell the design in parts like selling your logos, icons, header or footer PSD in your auction.

Photo by The-Lane-Team’s

3. Create a giveaway post where you can give your old design as the prize

Giveaway is a great way to get large traffic on the blog & giving old design as a prize would surely make everyone crazy & the word about your old design is given away in giveaway post will spread like fire & people will do anything to have their hands on your old designs. This will also get you lots of new subscriber to your blog.

Photo by Andrzej Gdula

4. Reward your subscriber by gifting old design to most commenter on the blog.

Rewards are the best way to say that you care about your subscribers. So rewarding your old design to the subscriber with most comments will show that you always reward the most loyal follower of your blog with some exciting gifts . So this will not only give you more followers to your blog, but also you will earn large number of loyal followers which are always needed for any bloggers.

Photo by Kostya Kisleyko

5. Sell your design in marketplace.

Photo by Chris Holder

Putting up your design for sell in marketplace will definitely make you richer by some dime as there are many readers who will wish to have website like yours.

6.Distribute design under Creative Common Rights.

Distributing design under creative common rights is a good idea, in this way you generate large number of backlinks & traffic to your blog.

7.Share old design with some slight modification to subscribers of the blogs.

If you are not willing to give your original design of your blog, then you can create a modified version of design & can distribute that design to your readers. It will be a win-win situation for you as well as for your reader.

8.Give them away in freebies.

Photo by Billy Alexander

Giving your design as freebie, without any conditions will show your generosity & you will get huge traffic too, as most of the blogger will point to your domain suggesting their user to download your old design.

9.Write tutorials showing how you created your design.

Photo by Zsuzsanna Kilian

Tutorials on how you created your old design is other way of showing your willingness to your subscriber to give them an inside to your design concept & let them know the kind of hard work you put into your designing.

10.Giveaway psd’s in freebies.

If you are not willing to share your complete design, then best thing you can offer freebies of PSD document of your design.

So just don’t garbage your old design as there are many bloggers who are die-hard fan of your blog, who would like to receive their favourite blogs old design & would like to implement them on their blog. By this way you can get large traffic but also generate some good fan following on to your blogs.

In this inspirational showcase article, I collected a little bit different blogs – usually blogs serve for one purpose – design or function. Just a few blog designs fulfil both important tasks, I thought I will find a lot more design suitable for this article before I started.
Here you’ll find a lot of beautiful simplicity and functionality where design really works and matters! Enjoy and hope you will learn good things from those blog designs and implement in your own designs as well!

1. Web Is Love

You will find just a few colors used in this layout, effectively used whitespace, cool hand-drawn illustrations and little icons. Unique concept.

2. 15 June

Very clean landing page without any images, but visit his individual posts as well, you’ll see unique styling and change of navigation color!

3. NuWomb

What I enjoyed the most was a little touch with textured background and featured slideshow putting all main content above the fold. Only I think since middle section is so long, designer should have 2 column layout not 3 to give more space to actual article. It’s good to have the most important information on “above the fold” section though (RSS subscribe, newsletter, shop).

4. Cult-F

This blog has excellent header to show immediate creativity, not sure though if it’s not too big. Navigation is very interesting – when you scroll down, navigation cloud moves with you – idea is great, I felt a little bit disturbed since I am sitting on my laptop with little resolution, but this is a great way how to increase pageviews I think.

5. SkyLab Blog

Here I enjoy the most little, silent Twitter,Facebook, Delicious and RSS buttons – every designer will notice and evaluate this approach!

6. Creative Depart

Interesting approach – you can switch between grid/normal modes and choose which layout works better for you. At least for me – I feel appreciated, like I have some kind of modification possibilities and personal touch.

7. Veerle’s Blog

Great example showing how it’s possible to consume a lot of different information in good way. All those little icons, header and light typography just creates right accents and makes layout interesting.

8. Freelance Switch

Every site in Envato network is designed in smart and very effective way.  Watch out how they put the most important information in above the fold section, but in the meantime they emphasize effect with big typo, self describing icons and cool mascot!

9. Twirk Ethic

Beautiful simplicity – can retro style be any cooler? Excellent 3 column layout consuming a lot of information in visually appealing way.

10. Ecoki

Is it possible to be any more cleaner and grid based? Such eye-candy and so effective design!

11. Best Blog Box

Visually and content rich magazine type website – on index page you will find a lot of different articles to grab your attention in 3 column layout, but when you are in article, you’ll get even more space for article and just 2 column layout! Handy!

12. All For Design

Very clean and textured French blog design – I enjoy social networking mouseover buttons and style throughout whole design keeping it clean, grungy – yet  trendy. Visual beauty is emphasized with colourful “above the fold” header.

13. CSS Tricks

Close to perfection, Chris has many projects already and he advertised almost all of them in single landing page! Very functional website, only I think it needs more detailed sections, so people could find information more easier besides search and sidebar featured articles.

14. Mike Precious

One more great dark design!

15. The Designed

Very often it’s good idea to just keep layout clean to be effective.

16. SquareSpace Blog

Little rulers and transparent header creates an effective impression, I am not sure about sidebar but other than that – unique approach!

17. Elliot Jay Stocks

Besides colors, I enjoyed original footer and even more notice Search, which is only there! Good way of thinking – people scroll through site, don’t find what they want, but then notice footer and fat search button inviting to search for desired topic!

18. Good.Is

You can learn from this website, how to consume huge amounts of information and sections in good way.

19. Mashable

Mashable’s great design is huge case of study more from functional point of view (I would give a little bit more artistic look to it, but it’s social news site, not design blog).

I include whole index screenshot, because I wanted to show how many ads and information is consumed here, how mashable promotes their all social networks and really dominate there!

20. Web Design Ledger

Henry Jones has given this 3 column site some great functional and visual features – beautiful featured images and a lot of small thumbnails in sidebar to grab reader (designer) attention and it works!

21. Coda

One of rare exceptions where I really like dark design! Design could be more functional, but it always depends from specific project – for them, I think, suits perfectly!

22. Think Vitamin

Beautiful light and functional design which works using just monochrome, orange and green colors in the right sections!

23. Simple Bits

Handcrafted pixels done effectively!

24. Freelenz

Little things matters and a lot of little things used in good way, create amazing website like this!

25. 45 Royale

At first design seemed to be chaotic, but just after a moment I got a very good impression about its appearance and functions!

26. N-Design Studio

Amazing designer blog – extremely creative and surprisingly functional in the same time!!

27. PSD.Tutplus

Not a long time ago Envato changed their network site designs – big case study, interesting choice of navigation, sidebar organization and great icons to make good accents!