The Uncrowned King of Web Design
We ran blog awards in 2008—unironic, earnest blog awards—with categories including Man of the Year, Girl of the Year, Riesenschnauze (the big-mouth prize, for people who said the things nobody else would), Sex Sells, Best Unique Design, Sweet ’N’ Cute, and a newcomer prize for blogs still finding their footing. The jury was Ad, our resident Mac god whose opinion on anything digital carried real weight; Gunni, who had been blogging longer than most people had been online; Mona, whose freshness to the scene made her useful precisely because she’d built up no immunity to it; and me, serving in my self-appointed capacity as the uncrowned king of web design.
What I remember more clearly than the winners is what the categories themselves said about the moment. Personal blogs had internal hierarchies back then—aesthetic standards, something that functioned like a canon. Winning the Riesenschnauze meant something because having a big mouth online still felt like a specific personality trait rather than the default condition of being online at all. People had distinct voices. People argued about sidebar fonts.
My parting shot in the wrap-up was aimed at the ariel-white WordPress monoculture—all those narrow text columns on blank white backgrounds, restraint dressed up as taste. I called for dark themes, black designs, something that proved a decision had been made. A white page with a column of twelve-point text isn’t a design. It’s an absence of one.