Styleless
I recently built a new blog to write about topics unrelated to product design. I wanted the site to be separate from my design site since the content would be substantially different.
I began to explore visual directions unrelated to my design site. I got excited about an idea where each entry was a paginated typed letter, with a letterhead and a signature, as if it was produced by a typewriter.
I spun together a prototype and felt inspired. I gave the pages realistic physics. The ink bled on the paper. I added a coffee mug and a desk light that turned on in the dark theme. When the reader would ‘pick up’ a letter it would take over the full view, when they ‘put it down’ it set itself back into the pile of letters.
One night I started to add content to the blog. As I saw what I was creating, I felt terrible. This didn’t feel like me. I knew I would grow sick of this design. It would become a liability. The point of this blog was not the design, it was the content. What was I doing?
I scrapped the whole thing and started over. I used the exact same design as this website.
I find when design gets out of the way, the intention of the experience is more clear. When every element is worth your attention, a trust can be formed with the person interacting with the experience. I consider this ‘essentialism.’ It can look like minimalism, but minimalism is a ‘style’.
I believe the purpose of a design is greater than the design itself, and therefore design should always defer to the intention of the experience.
I can imagine a lot of reasonable counterarguments to this position. The ‘desk’ blog could have been a more interesting experience.
I also won't disagree that stylized design can be essentialist if every stylistic choice is in service of the intention. A slot machine would be unsuccessful if it was minimal. It is essentialist in giving you hope you might win.
In my case, I abandoned the 'desk' blog because the design was disconnected from the purpose. Form should be one with the intention. I think that is style less.