What you get
Features
Everything a visual blog needs, picture by picture.
PicaLook is built around one simple idea: a story is easier to love when you can see it. Here is everything a writer gets, and everything a reader can enjoy, without an account, a pop-up or a paywall in sight.
Every story opens on a picture
A PicaLook post begins the way a good photo album does, with the picture first. Add a cover and it fills the top of the page from edge to edge, with your title resting on a soft white card just below it.
Full-width covers
Your cover photo greets readers before the first sentence, then follows the post everywhere: on your profile, in topic feeds and in the “more from” tiles.
Typographic covers
No photo for this one? The post gets a pastel poster with its title set in big, rounded type, so a words-only story still looks finished and inviting.
Images inside the story
Place photos between your paragraphs and add a caption. Images are hosted on the site and load gently as readers scroll down the page.
A blog with your name on it
Every writer gets a home at /your-handle/. Think of it as your shop window: the first thing people see when they follow a link to you, laid out like a photo grid rather than a dusty archive.
Portrait and short bio
A round portrait, a few lines about who you are and what you write about, plus an optional link to your own website.
A “Start here” guide
Write a welcome note for new readers that points to your favourite posts and the places you love to write about.
Categories as story rings
Group posts into categories. They sit at the top of your profile as round, photo-filled rings that readers can tap through.
Made for wandering
Readers rarely arrive through the front door. They land on one post, like what they see and look around. PicaLook always gives them somewhere lovely to go next.
Topics across the site
Tag a post with topics and it joins a shared page where stories on the same subject, from every writer, sit side by side.
Tables of contents
Long posts get a table of contents, so readers can jump straight to the recipe, the route or the chapter they came for.
More from the writer
The end of every post shows more stories by the same writer as square photo tiles, ready for one more look.
Readers who come back
RSS on every blog
Each writer has a feed at /handle/feed.xml and the whole site has one at /feed.xml. Readers follow along in whatever feed reader they like.
Comments with just a name
No account and no email address: readers type a name and a thought. Every guest comment is reviewed by our moderators before it appears.
Light, quick and kind to phones
- Pages are plain server-rendered HTML and CSS, so they open quickly, even on a patchy connection.
- Layouts adapt from a wide desktop screen down to a small phone, with comfortable, touch-friendly buttons.
- Vietnamese and other accented text display correctly, in headlines and body text alike.
- Links in posts are ordinary links, so you can point readers to your own website and to your sources.
- No ads, no analytics and no tracking scripts follow readers from story to story.
How to get a PicaLook blog
Reading is free and needs no account. Writer accounts are by invitation only, and there is no public sign-up form. If you would love to publish here, tell us a little about the stories you would share through the contact page, choosing the topic “Writing here”.