Form vs. Content

It's actually really hard for me to just create a blog and then write in it.

Whenever I start a new project, I feel like it has to look good before I can justify working on its content. There has to be a custom header with streamlined graphics, an aesthetic colour scheme, a crisp enticing font, symmetric balance. It's sad and probably the reason why it takes me so long to finish anything.

But the web is form over content. It's not about what's posted, it's about how it's posted.

In a world where anyone can say anything, credibility shifts from language to design. I'm completely susceptible to this while doing research- scrolling past html-based sites from the late '90s¹ in search of pages with clean contained formatting. Hell, it doesn't matter who wrote it and how well it's sourced, I'm automatically attracted to whoever got the most creative with php. Design determines the credibility of information.

The internet is text-based and the form in which text is held is essential. So it's significantly painful for me to write in a blog that I haven't formatted, knowing that until I get a spiffy header up, all of my clever writing will be undermined by its design.

¹ You know the type: a solid beige background, an uneventful marquee, black font spilling unevenly across the screen. It screams amateur.