The small web is beautiful An Essay by Ben Hoyt benhoyt.com I believe that small websites are compelling aesthetically, but are also important to help us resist selling our souls to large tech companies. In this essay I present a vision for the “small web” as well as the small software and architectures that power it. Why aim small?Features and complexitySolving the problem of software bloatRaw size isn't enough Rediscovering the Small Web wwwmicrosites
The signature It has long been understood that striving for originality as an end in itself is the mark of an inferior artist. The personal style of a good artist is never something that has been deliberately cultivated and forced but something that has appeared unsought as inevitably as the personal style of a man's handwriting. But since artists of note are seen to have a distinct personal style, no artist can hope to make a reputation in a competitive society unless he too can show a distinctive style which easily differentiates his work from that of other artists and draws attention to it. Therefore artists of little capability or uncertain vocation will take great care to make their work look 'different', whereas those with any certainty in them will know that their work cannot help but look different from that of other people any more than signatures can. It is worth reflecting that the fact of the unmistakable individuality of each man's signature is one foundation of modern commerce everywhere. To establish the individuality of it one need not write it vertically up the page in letters two inches high. And yet there are only twenty six letters, and everyone else uses them too. David Pye, The Nature and Aesthetics of Design Over-imaginationA fresh focus of power style