Less is more.

Simple is hard.

Resisting the urge to add more.

Jan 04 2025 @joshua


Creating this website was hard.

I have built many versions of 99Lime.com over the years. It's always been my personal website. Sometimes to showcase my portfolio, sometimes to sell products, sometimes as a blog. 

I've always billed myself as a minimalist – to my peers, clients, and friends – but I have rarely lived it, especially in my work. Always exploring my cool design "chops", or how creative I was inventing a new interactive element for a page, or fancy graphics for clients. After 25+ years of designing things online and off, I have come to realize that it's easy to be complicated... but extremely hard to be simple. 

I'll give you an example.

Just building this page, I have 8 different font variations. (9 if you include the paragraphs).

  1. the slogan in italics
  2. the "logo" 99Lime text - uppercase, line-height
  3. the main title
  4. the sub–title - different color
  5. the by–line
  6. headings & sub–headings
  7. signature phrase
  8. & finally... the signature "Joshua"

That is my version of "minimalistic"!?!?! WTF!


Not discouraged. 

The devil is in the details.

This is by far the simplest version of this website, but far from the easiest. The challenges are different this time. Of course I can add another library, or framework, or widget, or plugin, or _____ fill in the blank, to solve my problems, add coolness, or whatever. That has always been the challenge... how do I make this work, and what technique or technology do I have to learn to do it. 

This time around it's about undoing that natural impulse and creating by refinement and reduction – until there is nothing left to take away.  

As it is now, I added and removed a whole bunch of things while making this. Asking myself the entire time if I was adding value, or just adding for the sake of it. That resulted in cutting out a lot of things that I apparently assume must go on a simple blog style website. 

I thoroughly enjoy challenging my own assumptions as I go through the process of exploring simplicity for effectiveness sake. And I am looking forward to sharing my findings with everyone who happens to visit.

 

Thanks for reading, – joshua