The good and the bad

OK - I wasn't going to go here, but I have to. I have one guilty blogging pleasure - I love to read a gossip blog called Pink is the New Blog( http://www.trentsblogspot.com). The writer is entertaining and he is obsessed with celebrities (most notable Brittney Spears) and I just get a kick out of reading his semi-newsworthy portrayal of Hollywood (is there such a thing?) Not only do I like to read his blog but I think his design is very easy to follow and actually adds to his posts. The only colors on the blog, other than the pictures, are black and pink. His heading is catchy and the only part of the blog that he occasionally changes (the rest of his layout remains the same and has for quite some time) Each post has a title in the same pink, but a bigger and bolder font. He even sets apart "spoiler alerts" so that if he is commenting on your favorite show and you haven't seen it yet - you know not to look at that portion. His right side has his archives as well as advertisements. He comments on several topics in each post and simply separates them with an extra return. He includes pictures in the appropriate places and occasionally has links on the pictures that direct the reader to the original publication. At the end of a day's posting he has a list of "news worthy" items that the reader can click and these links again send you to various sites on the web with more information on that particular topic. His linear, structured setup, minimalist approach on color, and simplicity make his blog fast and easy to navigate through.
On the other hand (and I feel I should stay in the same smutty Hollywood drama category to fairly compare) sites like "The Superficial" (http://www.thesuperficial.com) and "Hollywood Tuna" (can you believe I just put that in here)(http://www.hollywoodtuna.com) are not so fun to navigate through. First of all - how can you name a site Hollywood Tuna and then have fancy vines in heritage colors as your background - it doesn't fit. The one, the superficial, will start to tell a story and then not give you all the details but writes, "More after the jump..." which apparently you are suppose to click on something to get the rest of the juicy details. Well, you know what, that is too much work for me to find out what Brittney Spears wore/said/did. If I am on the site I am brainlessly surfing through things for down time and I don't want to have to work at things. Also, the background (Holly Tuna) is distracting and both sites have one good picture and then a bunch more related pictures small and at the bottom of each story. If you want to see them large enough to discern what you are actually looking at you need to click on them and wait for them to load...again, too much work for me.
I prefer simplicity. Going through my favorites and also playing around, I find simple color and heading patterns work the best. Too much color or change in font distracts the reader. Also, things should be very easy to get to - your eye should be able to fly across the page and quickly see something worth looking at. With easy sites a click away, more difficult sites need to simplify to attract more readers.
Looking at all this I think about my own family blog (www.comfortablechaos1.blogspot.com) that has several colors and fonts...back to the drawing board I guess (at least it is festive for this time of year...).