The intentional reasons behind my plain jane blog design: it’s easier to read, less distracting, more conducive to me writing, and I’m probably showing signs of my age.
I keep this blog intentionally plain. The background is light. The text is black. The hyperlinks are blue. It’s a rarity for me to use an image nowadays. This is all by design, not a lack of design.1 It’s intentional, so that when you visit my blog, your focus is on the words and reading experience.
There’s no dark mode version of this site baked in.2 Reader Mode is an option on your laptop, tablet, or phone if that’s any interest to you. Just set my site to open by default in Reader Mode and you should be good to go. It’ll look almost identical to the design on the page already with the only changes being your preferred background color and typeface.
I use Reader Mode on many blogs I read, especially those with dark backgrounds and light text. It feels more common nowadays to have someone voice an opinion about how a light background burns into their retina. So, to give a dissenting opinion: I find dark backgrounds and light text difficult to read. I’m assuming this is because I have an astigmatism in both eyes. Not entirely sure.
For these sites, I tap Reader Mode and lighten the background — either to plain white with black text and blue links or to a lighter black background with off-white text and light blue links.
I enjoy a well-designed, visually appealing website; but it’s not the look I’m going for on my own blog.
Have you ever visited Scott Boms’ website? If not, you should. It’s a work of art. Which makes sense because he’s an artist. I read his Documenting blog every couple of days.
Envy creeps in sometimes when I visit his blog. It’s beautiful. Well balanced. I go for the words he writes and the creative work he shares, and yes, I also visit because of how well-designed it is. How pleasing the layout is to the eyes.
Past versions of this site honed in more on an intricate design. Some days I consider going back to this. But then, when I pause, I realize what’s happening in my brain: resistance to the art of writing, as Steven Pressfield called it, is rearing its head. Because a heavily designed website will become, for me, a blog I write less on but tinker more with instead of the opposite — and the opposite is what I’m really after.
Consider why you created a blog in the first place. Was it to tinker, to share your writing, or a touch of both?
If I’m honest with myself, for the first 15 years when I started writing online (1997-2012), it was “a touch of both.” Now, it’s the one in the middle: to share my writing. For people to read what I write. I’m not saying what I’m writing will necessarily inspire someone to start a blog and share their own stories. I’d like to think it does.
I encourage anyone (and everyone) to use social media less, if at all, and instead turn their attention to creating their own personal space on the internet.
But if all you came here for was a story or a snippet from my day or week, I’m cool with that. In the end, I want your focus to be on the words you read and your reading experience. Not a bunch of other things I’ve got going on in the navigation menu or sidebar or footer.
I say this all as someone who’s still cool with maximalist websites and had a GeoCities website in the 90s when tacky design ruled the web. For me, present day, as my hair moves toward gray, I keep my website intentionally plain.
What’s the why behind your website design?
Footnotes (because sometimes I digress)
- I’ve created and coded many complex websites for businesses and organizations in the past. If I wanted this website to be fancy, it could be. ↩︎
- I’ve tinkered with the idea of dark mode, but in the end, I feel Reader Mode does a superior job abiding by accessibility guidelines and respecting screen reader technology than anything I code. ↩︎
Dig my writing? Get updates of new posts: