today, i made lauragao.ca/essays
green??
the design, objectively, is not bad. it passes. it looks semi-professional.
but it's mid. it doesnt pop out. it doesnt make you feel wow that's inspiring, i wanna make smtn like that
i feel disappointed nonetheless. the website i designed for sammy was cool wasn't it. it looked cool. it looked cool!!
my personal website, design wise, is objectively mid. every page of it. /core. /babble. /essays. homepage. /film. can i even call myself an artist?
/babble was made fast and mvp and "just have some site to host ur writing it doesnt have to look good." it doesnt. it's the most basic bitch shit. basic bitch ass font. basic color scheme, monochrome without a single splash of saturation.
so. when i went to /essays. i wanted this page to look nice. i browse google fonts for a nice serif font that gives the posh newspaper vibes. i add 9rem of margin to the top of each essay. i tried to feel the vibes. the coziness.
the hover triangle thing that comes in. the green. i wanted a theme color. not another monochrome page like /babble.
HOLY FUCK that was the most useless 30 mins of my life. like. experimenting w different shades of fucking green for the /essays. i originally used tailwind green 600 as primary but it felt too saturated for the oldtimey vibe of the essays page. so i made it less saturated but then that made it look too unsaturated. evergreen tree. /babble has a modern vibe and dm sans.
then i fucked it and used a different green for /essays!! then. wowie. that felt freeing. that's fucking crazy i. can have. different themes. for differnet parts of my website. "one color theme for the entire website" is a myth and should die.
huh honestly. did that green even add anything to /essays? compared w grayscale stone or background that is like. faded yellow newspaper vibe. idk. wtv.
it's ok the inspiring part of ur blog was never meant to be its design right. it's the writing that blows em away :sparkles:
dennisc.net, perell.com, substack, paulgraham.com/essays, slatestarcodex: all the blogs i read that objectively do not look fancy as websites. i love them all the same.
i want a lower bar for posting to /babble. i feel scared to post this without adding ltos of context but like FUCK U THE BABBLE IS UR PLACE TO POST BULLSHIT STREAM OF CONC
but if ur site also looks fancy design wise, it extra stands out! nicky case interactives!! the articles in /babble/cool - ncase.me/ballot, jesse's fourier thing, madhav's 2021 reflection.
hmmm maybe i could do smtn weird. weird and quirky. kognise's rainbow background mode. it can be a weird new esoteric feature. it can have sm colors ur eyes bleed. it can be imperfect and fucked and okay, because it's the babble where imperfections blossom.