Do not show stuff

I was already on the verge, the branch feature/redesign had long been created, the stylesheet already opened, and I wanted to "just" expand my existing design with a small feature. This would probably have cost me days, if not a few weeks, again.

A long time ago, I started filling a folder with screenshots and downloads of designs that I particularly liked. For some reason, I rummaged through this folder again a few days ago. I came across a screen that immediately excited me again and would make the website look like an open book. The typography and text layout were already similar to my site, so it just needed this split view and a bit of CSS…

And suddenly, I was moving things around and destroying layouts, compressing grids, and then sat there looking at my… well… work. "No!" I monologued in my head, "No, no, no! You have enough things that need to be programmed. You can now adjust your design and probably need a whole while for it, during which you will most likely write nothing again!"

O-Oh! I love coming up with more or less cool functions and designs for my site. What could you do with all that! But the thing is: Without good writing, I don't need everything around it either.

So instead of adding new things to the site, I deleted the branch and, in the same second, removed something from my site. A certain satisfaction spread.

I like websites that convey the most important things with just a few elements: their content. It's like with texts, music, and certainly many other creative things: It's always easy to add more, but challenging to reduce them to the essentials.

Incredibly hard. There are so many possibilities!

Many new and old blogs that I read manage this well, and I regularly look at them to ground myself before I get lost again in things that may look great but don't improve anything.

Here are a few example sites that focus on the essentials and are therefore so good:

• Dominik Hofer
• Manuel Moreale
• Maggie Appleton
• Marcel
• Anthony Fu