The Web's Grain — Frank Chimero

• “We begin in admiration and end by organizing our disappointment.”


• “I wanted to take something big and make it small again.”


• “Before I began to practice, mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers. After I began to practice, mountains were no longer mountains and rivers were no longer rivers. Now, I have practiced for some time, and mountains are again mountains, and rivers are again rivers.”


• primary visual challenge = responsive design


• “…the only choice is to recognize it as implicit to the medium, and devise strategies to manage it.”


• each step we take away from the medium’s intentions makes our creations weaker — working against the grain, swimming up stream and climbing uphill


• “It is fascinating that you can do that, but it’s really not what a website is supposed to do.”


• every material has a grain, including the web


• internet = infinitely malleable material


• “Many sites will share design solutions, because we’re using the same materials.”


• “What would happen if we stopped treating the web like a blank canvas to paint on, and instead like a material to build with?”


• web design = “edgeless surface of unknown proportions, comprised of small, individual, and variable elements from multiple vantages assembled into a readable whole that documents a moment”


• start drawing, then put the box around it


• “we’re designing how elements break down, but really, we should be focusing on how they build up”


• “Technology only adds more — it is never this or that; it is always this and that.”