Impressive Tumblr Customizations

• By Jad Limcaco
• January 11th, 2010
• Inspiration
• 78 Comments

We all know how popular WordPress is. Hundreds of blogs that we visit daily use WordPress to publish their content. Over the past year, there have been a few different services that have popped up that allows you to post content online a lot faster than WordPress would. Two of the most popular ones are Tumblr and Posterous.

While posting content through these services is incredibly easy, the hard part is choosing which one to use. They both have their pros and cons. I actually asked around Twitter for people’s opinion on which they liked best: Tumblr or Posterous?

Tumblr or Posterous?

Here are some of the responses:

1. track02: Both are great – Tumblr for Pics/Art – Posterous as a Blog. But – i am Pro-Tumblr.
2. dirka: Hands down Posterous.
3. zulsdesign: Tumblr
4. InspiringPixel: Posterous can be used to post on Tumblr, but not vice versa. Speaks for itself. Both have diffeent uses.
5. Phillysoul11: I haven’t done much with Posterous but I really like Tumblr.

Out of the people that responded, over 70% mentioned that they liked Tumblr better. Personally, I haven’t really used Tumblr but I have used Posterous before. One of the main reasons why people like Tumblr so much is because of the ease of theme customization. I actually asked David Perel from Obox (Premium Themes) about which service had a templating format that was easier to customize and here is his answer:

"Tumblr is quicker, Posterous is a bit of a mission."

So when I got his response, I decided to do some surfing and research to find the most creative and beautiful Tumblr designs. Here are thirty impressive tumblog designs that you can draw inspiration from. So if you are thinking that you can’t be very creative with Tumblr, just check out the following designs.

Doug Neiner

Doug’s tumblog is beautifully done. The details are really what sets it apart. I like how he has that sidebar on the left side with his image, company information, along with the social media icons. What I really love about his design is if you look through the different posts, each type of post is cleverly designed a different way. If you don’t know what I mean, you definitely need to go and view his tumblog.

Art in My Coffee

This tumblog was designed by the popular Meagan Fisher. This has a format that is a little different from most tumblogs. It’s actually a gallery of foam art in coffee. I love the subtle texture on the background. Also, the color scheme blends well and is very pleasing to the eye. This is definitely another site that you need to visit.

Mark Jardine

Mark Jardine’s tumblog features a really clean and high-tech design. I absolutely adore that carbon fiber texture! Also, the icons that he uses for each post are very nice and I like the fact that the site is left-aligned.

Gary’s Real Life

This is a very simple tumblog that lets the illustrations stand out. The illustrated header adds a really nice touch to this tumblog.

MetaLab

MetaLabs designs definitely stand out due to the pixel perfect lines that is all over the design. The site uses lots of 1px highlights and shadows that is sure to make any design pop. The crew over at MetaLab has also designed Fluid, which is one of the most popular free Tumblr themes.

Gondaba

Gondaba has a very simple layout and design but what makes this tumblog stand out is the fact that for each post, they use a different color. The tumblog also incorporates a color switcher where you can switch the colors of the site to a variety of different colors.

Danny Garcia

This tumblog is very minimal and it looks very sophisticated. Danny Garcia manages to pull of the white text over black quite well. You also need to check out his regular Blog (Expression Engine) as well.

Vertetbleu

Vintage is the word that I would use to describe this tumblog. I really love the watercolor-stained paper that is used in the design.

Name That Film

This tumblog is a tumblog featuring one main image and a clue about that particular image. What you have to do is name the movie based on the clue. I think the design gets the job done because it doesn’t distract you from the image. The popcorn adds a nice touch to it as well and gives you that "movie" feel to it.

Eat Sleep Draw

This tumblog incorporates a very unique header as well as a nice and light colored lined paper in the background. The footer looks very nice as well and the use of the pencil as the background for pagination is a great idea.

Karen Abad

This tumblog is very unique. The background illustration of the mountains is great, but what set this apart is the static footer at the bottom. If you look, the bottom area with the grass and the cat stays put when you scroll down.

Jeff Finley

Jeff Finley’s tumblog is very minimal but it is definitely attractive. The contrast between the dark background and the light foreground really adds a lot to the design. I also like the use of the slab-serif on the logo.

Extra Firm Hold

This blog is another blog that is simple but just adds a nice and catchy header. For some reason, I feel like eating Chips Ahoy every time I see this design. :)

Domo Nom Nom

This is an excellent idea for a tumblog. The design is very fun and everytime you switch the page, the items that Domo Nom Nom is shoving in his mouth changes. Check it out to see what I mean.

Moose Garden

A tumblog design full of textured goodness. The brown / yellow / gray combination works really well together. The dotted yellow lines are also a nice touch to this impressive eye-candy.

HrrrThrrr

This design features a nice hand-drawn header and sidebar. The design is very simple but effective in my opinion.

It’s the Interweb

This design is a collection of music and videos from the internet. Another simple design but the design fits perfectly because of what it’s used for.

Paul Giacherio

This is a very beautiful and dark tumblog. It also features a nice flexible grid as well. Definitely one that you must view.

Photoholic

Not much design on this tumblog but what I really like about it is the white logo sticking to the content area. I also like the brown background texture.

TMBLG

This is another dark website but just like the MetaLabs design, it really uses the 1px lines very well. I also like the accentuated use of green on the post type.

Matthew Buchanan

This tumblog is very clean, and it really makes for some easy reading due to it’s minimalistic approach. The solid post-type icons are well done. The speech bubble on the header is also a nice touch to this design.

Allison Weiss

Great use of the hand-drawn style in the logo as well as with the menu items. This site’s design really fits this music artist well.

HERE

The big, black, bold letters instantly capture your attention when looking at this design. To me, this design evokes the feeling of reading an old and vintage book.

Mat.cc

This is another very nicely designed site that has the minimalistic feel to it. The use of pink is a nice touch as it really goes well with the light blue background.

9-bits

This left-aligned tumblog has some great and beautiful details to it. If you click through, you will notice that the headlines have a nice yellow text-shadow effect all done with CSS3.

52 Weeks of UX

I was actually already finished with the post when I saw this tumblog. The typography is excellent as well as the simple illustrations that are used in this site. But that’s not all, the best thing about this site is its excellent content. It’s definitely one that you need to visit and add to your favorites.

Tracing

A very minimalistic tumblog created by Kevin Holesh. The design is simple and really let’s the content be the primary focus. Also, if you like this Tumblr theme, Kevin has already made it available for your own tumblog. You can view the theme details here.

Heather Rivers

This is the only tumblog that I’ve seen thus far that breaks the convention of center or left alignment and opts for a right-aligned layout. While I’m not a big fan of right-side layouts, this one seems to work for some reason.

Roll Call

This tumblog has a basic design. What’s cool about it is you can press your left or right arrows to navigate the site. It’s actually a unique way to view and discover different Tumblr users.

Anyways.us

Lastly, this tumblog is probably the most minimal that I’ve seen so far. The design is simple, and it makes for some easy reading. This is a theme that I would install on my tumblog (if I had one) and if it was available for download.

Correction: I made a mistake. This is actually a theme but either way, it’s still a beautiful site.

Beautiful Tumblr Themes

Here are a couple of good posts from AppStorm about Tumblr themes that you can use for your own tumblog. Enjoy!

• The Top Twelve Tumblr Themes
• The Best Premium Tumblr Themes

So which one of these Tumblr customizations did you like and why? Are there any other impressive Tumblr site designs that I left out? Please share them with us. Leave your answers in the comments below. You must also follow Design Informer on Twitter.