Writing is a bit like developing a photographic print in a darkroom. At first the image is invisible. Then, through chemical treatment, it slowly appears, building contrast until you stop the process at the point of balanced light and dark. Structuring thoughts is a similar gradual process. I’ve applied this idea in my writing, treating this website as a living document: posts begin as notes and move through draft, in-progress, finished, and sometimes abandoned states. All the decisions below follow from this principle while drawing inspiration about design choices from Matthew Butterick, Oliver Reichenstein, Gwern Branwen, and Craig Mod.

Design aspects

Status tags

The “status” tag describes the degree of completion. “Notes” can be a list of links or screenshots, while a “draft” has at least some structure or underlying thesis, and a well-developed draft is described as “in progress”. Finally, when a page is done—in lieu of new information—it’s simply “finished”.

Internal and external links

Knowing when a link takes you to an external website is a useful indication of an upcoming context switch. External links are indicated with a grey underline while internal links have a green underline. Furthermore, internal links have a popup/popover view, that lets you preview the content of the page before clicking on it. This feature is particularly useful to references sources while reading my essays; that’s why I added it.

Colour palette

Flexoki is a colour palette designed for reading and writing on digital screens. It’s inspired by analog inks and warm shades of paper, which resonates with my passion for historical and architectural geekery. You can switch between light and dark mode press the D key or use the button at the top right of the website.

Sources and bibliographies

Apart from the practical angle of my website, citations are the foundation of my writing. They tie ideas to their sources and inviting readers to explore further. I use compact, subscripted citations (like Gwern₂₀₂₀) to keep references clear and unobtrusive. This approach, borrowed from scientific notation, ensures citations evolve seamlessly with my “living document” process, from rough notes to polished posts, grounding my writing in verifiable sources.

Searching the website

Since the addition of sources and bibliographies, I often need to look up a citation when editing my writing. For convenience, I’ve implemented a search bar that can be access by pressing the SUPER + SHIFT + F keys. On a mac the SUPER key is CMD, and on Windows it’s WIN.

Technical aspects

Static site builds

Content management systems and written documents require maintenance. To save on administration time, my website is built with Hugo, a static site generator that processes markdown files into web pages. Simply put, this lets me spend my time writing in iA Writer and Obsidian, my preferred apps for writing, instead of site maintenance; no faffing about.