Tilman

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Josh W. Comeau’s Rainbow Header

Josh W. Comeau just released a new version of his blog at www.joshwcomeau.com*. The new graphic and interactive header is such a playful and surprising delight! It unfolds in several steps:

1. A colourful rainbow brightens up the space behind Josh’s CGI-generated toy-like avatar. Nice!
2. Once you move the mouse cursor closer, the segments of the rainbow align with it. It feels a bit like stroking fur. Not that we would not have seen anything like it before, but what a surprise to see it integrated in a blog header!
3. A cog icon is fading in. Clicking on it opens the ”Rainbow configurator"! What the heck?! You can change the parameters of the rainbow graphic, the density, length and width of the segments, etc. Feels great!
4. Sometimes the parameters change on their own. What’s happening?! The small info texts explains: The changes are applied to all users of the site, instantaneously! What you see are live users changing the parameters, right now.

The best part: Nothing of this serves any purpose. It’s interactive art that delights users and feels great. That’s all! (The blog posts are also worth your time.)

Paul Graham: How to do Great Work

I had a wonderful online moment meeting Paul Graham’s website. I came for the „How to do Great Work“, an essay full of thoughtful advice and interesting thoughts. That kind of wisdom that comes from taking part in the world with an open mind and working hard for several years. Fortunately, Mr Graham took the time to think things through and put them in clear words on his website. He is also founded the Y Combinator and is a very popular and successful programmer and business guy, but I did not know that, and actually it did not matter to me.

It shocked me how bland and technically outdated his website is. Table layouts? Text as images? Is it 1995 again? More shocking: It does not matter. I read four more of his essays, despite the boring typography, layout and an unusual lack of imagery.

Do not overthink and over-engineer your websites, people. Content is king!

www.paulgraham.com/greatwork.html*

Adam Stoddard’s website surprised me with random background graphics completing the clean typography: aaadaaam.com* The color theme picker is also a nice touch.

Manuel Moreale started a newsletter highlighting wonderful human beings and their blogs each week:

peopleandblogs.com*

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