The joy of the personal webpage

A good personal webpage feels like stepping into someone's bedroom. Take your shoes off, feel the cozy carpet on your feet, I'll fix you a nice cup of tea. Yes, mine is quite plain, but that's because I just moved in. And what if it is minimal, what if I like it like that? But maybe I'll put some decorations up in a little bit. All writing exists to leave the reader with a message, and part of that task is to impart a certain mood on the reader. Normally, writers do this through word choice, sentence structure, and other literary techniques, but on the Web I think that it can extend beyond that into the design of the site itself, such as the header, fonts, colors, and interactive elements.

Consider Jimmy Hartzell's personal blog, The Coded Message, which uses the Terminal theme. I find the green-and-white monospace theming to the blog to be quite harsh and oppressive — it certainly isn't for everyone, and yet for his blog I like it. It has a distinct, opinionated visual identity that complements the technical discussions in the articles. There was an era when the Web was filled with interesting and innovative designs, take the original Space Jam website for example: every part of the site, the background, the fonts, the navigation, all are distinctly Space Jam-themed and feel as though they belong in the Space Jam universe.

This extends beyond fiction and into all forms of expression; as an example Rule 33 of the Supreme Court requires that documents use one of the Century typefaces. This beautiful font family has the rigid, authoritative look-and-feel that the Court wants to convey; it is a time-tested family having stood for more than a century. This choice of font is how the Court curates its brand identity with the public. Font choice, heading styles, colors, etc. are important for branding in general, and it's why companies can be so nitpicky with their branding guidelines.

Why, then, on the Web does it feel like all websites are the same? White or greige background, logo in the top left, words in the center with big margins on either side? It's because we've A/B tested the shit out of them and figured out that themed websites are bad at making money. Everyone hates on corporate redesigns — my most hated being Animal Planet's — but the part that people don't admit is that they work. Companies have experimented with a multitude of designs, and they always settle on the boring one without fail because that's what nets the lowest bounce rate and the highest conversion rate. It's what makes the most money, and MBAs feel as though they're doing the right thing when they can make the line go up.

But over-optimization driven by analytics damages the artistic vision. In the case of businesses, that vision is the branding, and A/B testing can damage that brand by taking away anything that makes the company's identity distinct. It's boneheaded, despite looking good on paper. For any profit-seeking enterprise that makes most of its money through the internet, a careful balance between branding and conversions needs to be struck. It seems that most don't realize this, and so we are left with a Web littered with soulless corposlop.

In the case of us personal bloggers, however, we're not here to make money. We should feel free to get creative, paint the walls a crazy color, and make our sites feel like home.