Styling and designing a blog is hard work, especially when you're new to it. Unless you're a web designer or you've paid someone to build and install your template, it's all a bit of a learning experience, a lot of finding new things and throwing them at the wall to see what sticks. When I first wrote this post, my favourite resources were a handful of tutorial blogs I leaned on constantly. Most of them have since gone quiet, and honestly the whole way you design a blog has changed underneath us.
So here's the 2026 version: the resources I'd actually reach for now if I were making my blog look pretty and work properly from scratch. Most of them are AI tools, because that's just where design lives now, and it means you don't need to know how to code to get something that looks intentional.
designing with Claude
This is my genuine starting point now. You describe the thing you want in plain words, a header layout, a category card, a colour palette that feels a certain way, and Claude builds it, gives you the actual HTML and CSS, and lets you keep tweaking it by just talking. It's the closest thing to having a patient designer who never gets sick of you changing your mind. For someone who knows what she wants but can't always write the code to get there, it's a cheat code.
Google Stitch
Stitch is Google's AI design tool, free through Google Labs, and it's built for exactly this. You give it a text prompt or even a rough sketch and it generates a proper UI, up to a handful of connected screens at once so the whole flow stays consistent. The part that matters for a blog: it exports production-ready code, plain HTML and CSS or Tailwind, so you're not stuck with a pretty picture you can't use. It's a lovely way to explore a few directions side by side before you commit.
still the best resource: other people's blogs
This one hasn't changed and never will. My favourite design resource is still just paying attention to every blog and site I visit. What made me stop and look, what felt nice to read, what I bounced off immediately. The tools have gone from tutorial blogs to AI that writes the code for you, but taste still comes from noticing what you like and asking why. Screenshot the things that stop you scrolling. That folder is worth more than any single tool.
a note on not overdoing it
The flip side of these tools being this easy is that you can generate endless versions and never actually publish anything. Pick a look, get it working, and go write a post. A slightly imperfect blog that exists beats a perfect one still sitting in a design tool. I say this as someone who has absolutely lost whole evenings to it.
> # end of file
> half of this blog was designed by talking to Claude, so, full disclosure
> show me what you're building, i want to see
> # signing off