I’ve always been a fan of minimalism; it appeals to me. But by nature, I’m not a minimalist. I tend to hold on to things which inevitably creates clutter. Eventually though, I get tired of the buildup and I purge the clutter and I’m left feeling lighter and more free.
For a very long time, I’d been thinking about applying the principle of minimalism to my site. I wanted to eliminate all the stuff that distracted from the content, keeping it simple, focused. Turns out, it’s harder to do than I’d thought. I found myself questioning the need for everything. Some things I could eliminate outright; others, I had to hide. One trick I picked up was from MSNBC.com. Post-launch, they load an additional block of content at the top of the page and scroll the page in order to keep it hidden off screen. I used that technique to hide my site navigation. Also, I didn’t want that nav to be the first content in the DOM. I wanted the post, article or whatever else the page was about to be first. So I put the navigation at the end of the page, moving it up top with CSS. Finally, I got rid of the “list of posts” home page and replaced it with a simpler, more focused page. Oh, and I did away with images. All the gradients and buttons you see are pure CSS. I didn’t want to pull down extra files unnecessarily.
I’m happy with the end product, but I consider it a work in progress. I think there’s a lot more room for refinement and adjustment. If you have any constructive criticism, please, feel free to write me.
–30–
Read more from the archive.