Inspiration transcending medium and the future

Monday, December 7, 2009 - 478 words - Tweet this

Today, the Guardian sported a very different front page (the reason is for a climate change, Copenhagen-related point they’re making alongside fifty-six other newspapers all over the world, but this isn’t my point. If you’re interested in the article itself, it’s here.)

For me, this is design that is at once functionally beautiful and beautifully functional – and, like so many manifestations of truly great design, it needn’t be restricted: I think this works on the web.

When I was first considered ‘resurrecting’ my website – to have a presence beyond the snapshots, clips, and quick posts on my posterous blog – I looked to Jason Santa Maria and Dustin Curtis. Both of these designers run blogs (Curtis’ is referenced as a ‘blogazine’) with rich, finely crafted designs for each individual post. The result is that each post is so much more than the sum of its parts – each is a story; an experience of both prose and aesthetics, intertwined by their very architecture.

This is certainly a prospect that excites me, and a challenge that I was and remain very interested in trying for myself. This front page today reminded me of this. They’ve designed a dramatically different – and very striking – page format, very much tailored for and designed around an important point; an idea; a subject that should stand out as much as this piece of design.

Needless to say, this is not the form my website has taken as of yet. This is due to my desire to simply start writing again – would I even be able to? So far, for me at least, it’s going well. Vitally, it would be tricky to attempt to write for a design – a handcrafted design must fit around writing that already exists, and possesses a theme to base it on.

As a result – simply wanting to have a platform on which to publish, and start writing now – I’ve ended up in a curious situation: this is the first time I’ve ever had a blog running on a standard, largely unmodified template. I’m actually fairly happy with how this has turned out so far. I’m certainly happy with how it’s persuaded me to write again, and write properly, about topics which interest me.

However, this isn’t what I really want for the future – to represent me online. I know what I don’t want: I don’t want to be drastically changing my entire site design regularly – I’ve done enough of this before, and it’s not satisfying. But nor do I want to carry on with a standard template. But the negative – what we don’t want – is always the easy part, and more importantly; it doesn’t ever reveal anything conducive to a great end result.

What I do want is the more important, and far more interesting, question. This Guardian front page is part of one answer.