A lot of designers (myself included) love white space. Does this mean from now on we’ll have to make good use of “wood space”? 
Anyway, here are some (there are probably a lot more) blog designs that use a wooden background. You may have seen them already in one or two CSS galleries. I just thought it would be interesting to try a visual comparison. Here goes:
Alex Buga - Alex is a fellow Romanian designer and I suspect he’s the one who started this trend (at least for blogs). He does quality work and the sites he designed are featured in all major CSS galleries.
Cristian Neagu - Cristian is also a Romanian designer, who’s site was recently featured in Best Web Gallery.
As you can see, I use a wooden texture myself, but only for the blog header. I used to like the contrast between the background and the pictures from my flickr feed (I had some thumbs up there in a previous version). I don’t like the whole darkness thing anymore and plan to switch to something light. That’s why I never get any thing done, cause I change my mind a lot, when it comes to designing my website. 
Anyway… for those of you still digging the whole wooden texture thing, here’s a great tutorial on how to build one in Photoshop.
LATER UPDATE: Hey, I’m not the only one to notice this trend. Noupe has a list of 22 designs using that piece of wood. Just found out via their RSS feed.
LATER UPDATE 2: Make that 23, cause they’ve been kind enough to add my site to the list. 
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[...] Switch to a lighter theme and use more white space, as opposed to wood space [...]
[...] Is Wood The New White? - 77 views [...]
[...] Textures and patterns are used more often than one may think. The reason why we don’t see them is because they usually remain in the background, supporting the overall design, replacing a standard background color and creating a more inviting atmosphere. But they almost never stand out. Used primarily for background images, they need to fit to the overall design making the content easier to perceive. In fact, some textures seems to have become so popular that designers suggest that wood is the new glossy style and wood is the new white. [...]
7 Comments
Hi Adrian,
We added your site to our list of “Stunning designs using that piece of wood”
You are doing a good job here
Thanks a lot, Noura! You are doing an excellent job yourself with Noupe.
Few days before you posted this, Alex Buga’s blog and Leslyg’s website had the same wood backgroung. Of course, it was a funny to find out that Leslyg stoled Alex’s work (although it was a free texture, not his 100% original work).
What can I say, I have a good visual memory. Nice collection anyhow
Btw, I still like white instead of wood :p
Yeah, I know. Alex had a post about that, but then he deleted the post. Not sure why.
He cheated, using a wood texture cleaming that was original and accusing the other one of stealing, after that the deleted the entry and created his own texture.
Now, I really don’t know who the thief is…
I’ve promoted my small business since 2005 with wood textures and illustrations. Somehow I never get bored of it.
Agust, I love your website! Very simple, yet so creative. Congrats!