< return to the brandensite

running commentary

The internet is filled with things. Here are some of them.

#design

2025

the brandensite 2025 May 13    branden.me
I learned how to format text with HTML way back when I was about 14 years old, in 1996. I did that because I wanted to make a website and back in 1996, when you were 14 and had no money and lots of free time, that's how you made websites: by hand, in a text editor.

Somewhere along the way – maybe when CSS became a thing – the world started calling all this fancy HTML-formatted text "web design" and actual graphics designers with actual artistic vision got involved.

I am not a graphics designer. And yet, just like when I was 14, I still want to have a website. This website, where I write crap like this. And I'm still writing all the HTML (and CSS, and scripting) by hand because that's just what I've always done.

Below is a screenshot of what this website looked like about six months ago. It looks a little different now. The boxes are still mostly in the same place but the colors are different and it maybe looks a little sleeker, a little easier to read. I don't know. Like I said, I'm no graphics designer – I just know some ancient HTML.
a screenshot of this website on October 23, 2024

Like it says in the sidebar, the brandensite has been in continuous existence for coming up on thirty years now. It's always changing, always morphing into whatever whim I follow. Somewhere I've got screenshots going all the way back. But for today, here, you can see what six months of updates have wrought.

Thanks for looking
Italdesign Aztec 2025 Feb 21    hagerty.com
Is it just me or did concept cars used to be cooler? Linked is an article about the Italdesign Aztec from 1988, which the author rightfully points out more resembles spaceship than car. With a pair of canopies separating the driver and passenger, an intercom to allow them to communicate, a control panel on the exterior along with instructions for operation stenciled nearby, and a rally computer for the passenger to operate, the Aztec may never have been destined for life as a daily driver, but man would it be fun to take one of these out to drop off my kid at school.

2024

Departure Mono 2024 Sep 13    departuremono.com
Departure Mono is a monospaced pixel font inspired by the constraints of early command-line and graphical user interfaces, the tiny pixel fonts of the late 90s/early 00s, and sci-fi concepts from film and television.
Also the website is sleek.
Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo? 2024 Sep 6    blog.nuclearsecrecy.com
The blog post is interesting in itself, but what's really fascinating about this is the person asking it. This isn't some random internet dweeb armchair expert poking at something they don't understand. Author Alex Wellerstein is a about as much an authority on this topic as a civilian can be, and since he's baffled, therefore I too am baffled.
Copying is the way design works 2024 Jul 23    matthewstrom.com
This is an essay about copying, and why it's such an essential part of the design process.
Color Boop 2024 Jul 21    dgerrells.com
From the same creator as the last post, poking around his website, I found this simple, fun, mesmerizing "Color Boop" game he created. You click on the screen to boop the colors. I'm currently on challenge 52.
How not use box-shadow 2024 Jul 21    dgerrells.com
And I thought I had a decent understanding of CSS... here's someone who built a ray tracing 3D rendering engine using nothing but box-shadow. Fun watching my CPU melt, tho.
Guess my RGB 2024 Apr 1    susam.net
This game generates an RGB color and you must guess it. It is the perfect game.
Greg Egan's Home Page 2024 Jan 8    gregegan.net
Greg Egan is a hard scifi author whose stories I've probably read, but that's not why I'm linking his homepage here. I'm linking his homepage here because of how much it is a testament to the beauty of old web. Of weird web. Of indie web. An example of a website that is fun to explore, not a droll collection of templated tabs.

2023

/now pages 2023 Dec 29    nownownow.com
I don't have a /now page on this website but this idea is interesting and worth considering – just a simple "here's what I'm doing now" status page available for anyone to see. Maybe one will show up here?
Your Website Search Hurts My Feelings 2023 Dec 27    openmymind.net
Respect to those out there who document the awful state of most websites. This garbage needs to be called out.
The Negative Impact of Content Dispersion 2023 Oct 27    nngroup.com
I'm a long-time fan of Jakob Nielsen's thoughts on usability and computers, and here's a new article from his group on the web trend of 'content dispersion,' or making websites with low information density. That is obviously not the ethos I used when designing this personal website, instead opting for the complete opposite. But it's fascinating to read some of the implications of pages designed at either end of the spectrum, spelling out the psychological consequences of there being more or less information on screen at any one time.
Google Web Fonts Typographic Project 2023 Aug 6    femmebot.github.io
Not sure how I've neglected to link this website before – it is one of my favorite sources of inspiration when making web pages or other things. I fumble my way through design only emulating palely those who do great work.
Building Your Color Palette 2023 Jun 21    refactoringui.com
I appreciate this article's refreshing take on building a color palette for a project, putting to words the vague sense of dissatisfaction I have when using one of those automatic palette generator tools. While I lacked the design sensibilities to put to words the issue, here it is spelled out plain as day, and even with a solution proffered!
Lorem Ipsum 2023 Jun 1    lipsum.com
One of my most visited websites since... forever. I may be an absolute amateur when it comes to graphic design and website layout, but by golly if I'm not going to use some authentic lorem ipsum in my mockups to astound (and sometimes confuse) my audience.
Laying Out a Print Book With CSS 2023 Mar 21    iangmcdowell.com
A delightful romp through CSS and it's magical world of being mis-applied but emerging triumphant.
Gradient Colors Collection Palette 2023 Mar 7    webkul.github.io
A nifty collection of pre-made HTML/CSS color gradients, for adding that little splash of brightness to your design.