I’m long overdue to post for my readers, so I thought I’d revisit my very first post here on what were (possibly) the best minimalist WordPress themes, considering it got picked up by Digg.
Let me first point your attention to a nicely worded article called The Case for Minimalist Web Design. I would insist that readership clicking on the previous link should replace “Web design” with “blog design” and mostly pay attention to the neat little bullet points for the purpose of my little experiment here.
I would like to represent to you my own silly list of bullet points for your consideration:
- Minimalist is a design solution that may/may not be appropriate
- Negative space is a very powerful and persuasive element
- Something about typography, limited though important
- Blah blah graphics used with precision and for a measurable purpose
- In conclusion, Sandbox update is coming
This is what I personally consider after deciding on that first point is: does X add any measurable benefit to the end user, and if it doesn’t, can I throw it out the window?
Here’s the experiment. Recently I came across the web site, The Federalist Papers, and for the most part I was entirely knocked off my feet. It was the first time in a long while that I came to a site where the content and the design so perfectly meshed together.
So I asked myself, what can I learn from what this site does so well and use it in my own designs? This site is useful. The paragraph-level permalinks are useful. The typography is right-on. I’m just fascinated with how well everything clicks together.
Now, if only I could get that to happen on my blog.
5 Comments
Wow, thanks! I’m flattered.
I’m curious about your “for the most part.” What would you like to see done differently?
Edward, I wouldn’t have done anything differently actually. Note the “hyperbole” tag I gave this post.
Great site, by the way. I’d really like to learn from what you’ve created, where everything is appropriate and relative, and apply that to blog design.
You’ve really created a lovely thing.
Deeply impressive work with federali.st, Edward. Thanks for linking to it, Scott.
Yes,
What I think makes it impressive is the simplicity of the CSS and the minimal amount of classes/ids. Mostly it uses styling on HTML tags, menaing that the markup is semantic in design/construction.
Good CSS needs Good markup.
Also the CSS is cleanly divided into colour, font, layout, making it portable. The only change I would make is to separate these elements into their own CSS files and use import to bring them together, and in this file that brings them together have page specific adjustments and references to Classes and IDs.
The content is particularly suited to this type of design as well: Semantically marked-up text. This is what the web was designed for.