paragiraffe

On (not) designing

Since I launched my first Django-powered blog over a year ago, I’ve been redesigning it over and over, none of which have seen the light of day. At some point I said, “I am never going to design my blog again.” And I kind of didn’t, and here’s how.

With the popularity of web frameworks, people have been putting together CSS “frameworks” to speed up their HTML/CSS coding as well as their backend development. A CSS framework will give you some reset rules, some typography, and a set of styles designed for laying out a grid. With these tools, you can put together a minimal but readable site, no real designing needed. (The Blueprint sample page is a really good example of this.) With grids and typography there’s guidelines to follow, which removes a lot of guesswork (or creative work, I guess).

So, I used Blueprint, mostly for grid stuff, and some small things I had to decide myself, such as colors. One of the downsides of a CSS framework is it’s not very semantic, although you can easily replace the class names later on. Jeff Croft’s talk on typography was just excellent, and I learned several new things, such as the typographic scale. The design is plain, but I’m okay with that — really plain designs have served me well in the past. But, like the rest of the site, the CSS is in Subversion, so I’d never really consider it “done.”

I found that trying to make a tumblelog look really unusual or new to be a tall order, that and I’m not really trying to design anything. I think most of the Tumblr designs look good, along with (especially) Nathan Borror’s site or of course Jeff Croft’s site. Any resemblance therein was meant only with respect and love.