As Little Design As Possible

A post back in July 2012 detailed some design changes made to Tech & Coffee. They weren’t overwhelming, but they were all decisions made with the goal of removing unnecessary items that got in the way of the site content. When I migrated from Squarespace v5 to v6, the design was updated again. The template I was using on v5 was no longer available and I took it as an opportunity to further refine the visual experience.

Today, T&C received another minor UI refresh. I saw a post on the Squarespace blog announcing a partnership with TypeKit, a digital font foundry. I wanted a more readable body font than Open Sans. I found a lovely font called Ronnia. I liked it so much that I also updated the heading/title font to the related Ronnia Condensed. They have so much more personality than Open Sans, and I feel like the site is more pleasing to read now.

The other noticable visual change is posts no longer sit in a white “container” in the middle of the page. When I moved to v6, I decided to keep with the idea that the drop shadow border and white background of the post area made it feel like you were reading a sheet of paper that was laying on the screen. I thought it was clever and visually appealing. It guided the eye to where it was suppose to be focusing its attention. I came to the realization that I was wrong, and it was unnecessary.

Dieter Rams’s last principle of “good design” states that it “is as little design as possible.” While I feel that many of the ten principles are exhibited in the new T&C design, the last was in the forefront of my mind as I striped away the unneeded UI elements.

Welcome to the honest, unobtrusive, innovative, useful, aesthetic, understandable, long-lasting, environmentally-friendly, thorough down to the last detail… Tech & Coffee.

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