Inspired by Motherfucking Website, a true exemplar of web design, I've redone the look of this site. Substantial credit goes to dub for posting that delight on IRC. I've kind of been on something of a retro and vintage computing kick recently which has at least in part been fueled by my reading and writing on information security, a venture that leads you to beautifully and sanely presented HTML documents like Lisping at JPL. Beyond that though there are other virtues to the minimally styled website.
The big driver for this redesign is that on this site I am working largely with text. Occasionally I'll toss an image into a post, but working here in a textual medium I would rather not have ham fisted attempts at inflicting design end up delivering end users a worse experience than what their web browsers are going to render by default. There's also the part where clean HTML plays really nice with screen readers and other software that improves accessibility for people who either require or prefer it. It also should render without breaking in any browser that finds it.
Another really big plus for me is that this being the web, and hypertext kind of being a big deal link colors are preserved. None of this "links are a slightly different color than the rest of the text bullshit. Links now stand out as they should. They now scream "Here's a source that can provide additional information or context!" Sometimes, if unlike me you are the sort of weirdo who saves you browser history they will show as purple to let you give you a heads up that you've visited the linked page before. It is very 90's sort of behavior, but it is useful and refreshing so embrace it.
Further driving this redesign is the fact that of all of the hallmarks of 90's web aesthetics that could have been revived, the hivemind has chosen to restore animated GIFs to prominence. Of all of the hallmarks of the early World Wide Web that could experience a revival I find this especially questionable. Then again I guess I am at least in some minor way contributing to the IRC revival that has happened alongside Bitcoin's ascent. Then again IRC has a lot of redeeming characteristics that make it hard to replace while GIFs ought to be bypassed in the name of good taste, as there might be three prolific creators of animated GIFs with any redeeming value.
So, Bingo Blog looks different nao,1 deal with it.
- Except if you have been using Lynx to browse the internet, then it should largely look the same. [↩]
I'm loving the new look. It does suit the style and if liking 'already-visited' link signs deems one weird, count me in. I'm lost without them.
Terribly excellent!
Thank you.
Yeah, it is amazing how in many ways the old web was more functional.