Today I would like to talk about blogs that have a unique design for each post. They break the traditional blog layout by designing a different theme for each post based on the topic. Designing a different layout for each topic requires a lot of time and creativity. So, we should appreciate these blogazines who spend their extra time to make your reading more pleasurable. If you would like to join this unique post trend, below are some excellent examples and WordPress tips on how to implement it.

72ave

Every post on 72ave is well planned and designed — from color theme to layout to typography. Truely amazing work!

Dustin Curtis

Dustin shows a table of content on his landing page. For each post, there is a different theme that goes with the topic.

Kyle Fiedler

Paddy Donnelly

The interesting feature about Paddy's blog is he gives hint about the next topic at the end of each post.

Jack Cheng

Beside the unique blog posts, I'm particularly impressed by the scrolling timeline navigation located at the top.

Gregory Wood

David DeSandro

If you worry about site branding and consistency, here is a good example to solve this problem. David DeSandro plays around with the content and comment area, but the header and footer remain the same.

Jason Santa Maria

Trent Walton

Trent Walton made it so easy to manage his blog posts by keeping the header and footer black which goes well with any light color theme. What make this blog stands out are the background images, color theme, and typesetting.

Occasional Unique Posts

Is unique blog post design taking too much of your time? Try to do it occasionally or on a special post like Smashing Magazine and Designer Informer.

Tips For Creating Unique Posts With WordPress

Creating custom post layout with WordPress is relatively easy. I find the easiest way is to design the blog posts on your local computer and then call the custom stylesheets with the WordPress's custom field feature.

• On your local computer, first create a folder (eg. drafts) to store your blog posts. Duplicate a copy of your theme's style.css file in the draft folder. For every blog post, create a new folder (eg. custom-post-title).
• For each post, create a new HTML file for writing and a new CSS file for custom layout where you override the theme's style.css.
• When you are done with the draft and the post design, upload the custom stylesheet to your server. In the backend, create a custom field (eg. custom-style) where you input the path of the custom CSS file.

Now in your theme header.php file, add the following code after the main style.css.

<?php $customcss = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'custom-style', true); ?>

<?php  if ($customcss != "") { ?>
  <link href="<?php echo $customcss ?>" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<?php } ?>