Sam Brown is a web designer and developer from Edinburgh. Not only does he live in the same town as myself and shares the surname ‘Brown’ with me, he is also cool (like me).

I can’t quite remember how I found his personal blog but I have and its really neat in terms of content and layout. As Sam as recently updated his site, I thought I’d spend a few moments explaining why I like this site so much.

The first thing that caught my attention on the site was the header reading ‘Sam Brown opens RSS feeds!’. For those out of the loop, RSS (or Really Simple Syndication)is a method of ’subscribing’ to a websites content. By adding the RSS Feed to your RSS Reader, you’ll be notified every time the author publishes something new.

I thought having a link to the RSS feed in the page title was a really clever idea; but it gets better. Upon moving to another page, I noticed the title text changes slightly to display a different way of using RSS feeds.

How cool is that? A fun and friendly way to raise awareness of your RSS feed without bastardizing the sleek design of the website.

While at the top of the page, I also noticed the elegant designed FavIcon in the address bar. A lot of the time favicons are forgotten or rushed but Sam’s is really sleek looking and communicates his monogram type logo. Its very polished.

Below the address bar and header, Sam has helpfully added a little ‘blurb’ that introduces the reader to him and gives a basic overview of how the site works. I love how Sam uses color to identify the different types of posts he makes - it makes navigation very easy and is much more recognizable than the standard category system used by many blogs.

And the use of that monogram logo beside the blurb text helps the blurb stand out from the rest of the content. It’s rather well done!

Overall, the site has a nice clean and modern look and feel to it. Unlike so many blogs today it foregoes a sidebard and silly madness with ‘widgets’ and whatnot.

Sam seems a really nice guy too, so go visit his website!