simpliflying
~ August 5, 2009 ~
It was time for another redesign. This iteration was inspired by a few of my favorite things: illustration, minimalism and letterpress typography. But more importantly, this redesign is my attempt to take a small step away from the template that’s usually such an integral, controlling aspect of web design.
Earlier this year, I interviewed a couple designers I admire greatly. Both of them had the same complaint about web design, one which felt so obvious yet often goes unvoiced — modern web design is too tethered to the template. Websites are built to be inherently repetitive. How many blogs can you name that don’t have the same exact design for every single page?
Perhaps working in print design has made me a bit more aware of the dangers of the template. A template is a convenient, comfortable cushion. It can take the effort out of design. You create it once and plug your content into it again and again. Maybe that’s why I always become so quickly bored of blogging. The content quickly becomes secondary to making it fit in layouts I built months ago. It becomes a chore, rather than a project.
Hopefully, this website will change that. The simplicity of its design allows me to change the look of every post on the fly. This is by no means a new innovation in web design; I’m following in the footsteps of giants, here. Jason Santa Maria does it already. A Brief Message did it even earlier. But the challenge of art direction means that currently, this approach to web design is still far from the norm. If I can take this small step away from the template, maybe — just maybe — creativity can take off. ∞