Less, But Better

People have asked why this blog looks the way it does. I guess I can see why they ask.

It’s black and white (with some subtle yellow around the newsletter signup link), and links are a standard browser blue when visited, purple when not.

The font is pretty standard. How it looks will depend on your device. There aren’t many images. There’s no ads. There’s no pop-ups or cookie banners (thanks to Simple Analytics). No tags or category links (for now). No related posts (for now).

Why? Because thinking about them now would distract me from my ultimate goal.

When I left school, my career options were pretty simple. Pursue a Culinary Arts Degree (to eventually become an Executive Chef), pursue an Industrial Design Degree in NCAD (to design cars), or become an Art Teacher (art was one of my two favourite classes in school, Technical Drawing was the other).

In Art class, I didn’t care much for the history part of it. I was fascinated by Mondrian, the Bauhaus (and all that associated with it), Andy Warhol, Charles and Ray Eames.

Anything modern and simple, I liked. Anything else, I didn’t.

Dieter Rams’ designs were the epitome of that. And, for me, tangible. Braun - where Dieter spent a lot of his career - had a factory near where I lived. Our house was full of Braun products. My grandfather had a Braun SK1 radio.

I always admired Dieter’s 10 principles for good design, this one in particular

”Good design is as little design as possible”

Yet, over the years - as my career deviated from it’s original pre-internet path - my principles deviated, too. I built overly complicated websites and web apps, optimizing for ad clicks over adding value. Referrals over retention. Sessions over simplicity.

So, as much as anything, this blog is an attempt for me to restrict the urge to focus on the unimportant. “Blogs” have “pages” for a reason - they’re meant to be like pieces of paper that we scribe our thoughts on. No more than that. Literally black and white.

Less, But Better.