I Think Web Design Is a Form of Art

I’ve always found it slightly difficult to explain what I actually like about making websites.

Obviously, it’s my job. Somebody comes to me because they need a website, I design it, build it, solve whatever problems come up along the way, and hopefully at the end they’re happy with what I’ve made.

That’s the practical version.

But there’s another side to it that is much harder to put into words.

For me, creating something can feel almost transcendental.

That sounds dramatic written down, but I don’t really know a better word for it.

There are moments when I’m designing something and everything else disappears a little bit. I’m moving things around, trying colours, changing type, making something move in a particular way, deleting half of what I just made and starting again. Eventually something clicks and it starts to feel like it has a personality of its own.

Those are probably my favourite moments.

It stops feeling like I’m arranging elements on a screen and starts feeling like I’m making an actual thing.

Websites as little time capsules

Something I’ve noticed more recently is that I can look through my old work and immediately connect certain websites to periods of my own life.

Not necessarily because anything about my life is visible in the website.

It’s more like hearing an old song.

I can look at a project and remember where I was living when I made it, what was going on at the time, what I was thinking about, what I was listening to, whether I was having a good month or a terrible one.

Sometimes I remember incredibly specific things.

A section of a website might remind me of sitting up far too late trying to get an animation right. Another reminds me of a particular apartment, a train journey, a conversation, or just a general feeling I had during that period.

I suppose anyone who makes things probably experiences this.

A painter must be able to look at an old painting and remember the person they were while painting it. A musician probably hears much more in an old song than the person listening to it ever could.

I get a version of that from websites.

They become little markers in time.

I don't really see the work as disposable

The web can feel very disposable.

Websites get redesigned. Businesses change hands. Domains expire. Trends change ridiculously quickly. Something that felt incredibly modern five years ago can suddenly look ancient.

But I still find myself becoming quite attached to the things I make.

Not every project is some enormous creative statement. Sometimes a website simply needs to work really well. Sometimes the best design decision is deliberately boring.

But when I get the opportunity to really build a personality into something, I care about it.

Probably more than I technically need to.

I’ll spend time on some tiny detail that most people will never consciously notice. A transition. A strange little illustration. The way one section overlaps another. A type choice. How something behaves when you hover over it.

Individually, none of those things are particularly important.

Together, though, they’re often the difference between a website that simply contains information and one that actually feels like something.

That’s the part I think is closest to art.

Not art in the pretentious sense

I’m slightly uncomfortable even writing that because saying “my websites are art” sounds unbearably self-important.

That isn’t really what I mean.

I don't think every website needs to be an artistic masterpiece, and I certainly don't think mine are.

What I mean is that the process feels creative in the same way other forms of making things feel creative.

You start with nothing.

Then there’s an idea.

Then usually quite a lot of rubbish.

Then a slightly better idea.

Then you obsess over something nobody else will notice.

Then at some point you look at it and think, oh, there it is.

Something exists now that didn't exist before.

I love that feeling.

The best projects usually have a point of view

A lot of websites are technically good.

They’re clean. They’re responsive. They have the correct headings, the right calls to action and all the usual things a website is supposed to have.

And yet you can forget them almost immediately.

The websites I enjoy making most tend to have some kind of point of view.

It doesn't necessarily mean lots of animation or something deliberately weird.

It can be quiet.

It can be incredibly minimal.

It just needs something that feels specific to the person or business it belongs to.

I think that’s partly why I enjoy working with smaller businesses so much.

There is usually a story somewhere.

Maybe the business has an unusual name. Maybe the owner has a particular personality. Maybe there’s a bit of local history behind it. Maybe what they sell is genuinely strange.

Those details are useful because they give me something to work with.

Rather than asking, “What should a plumbing website look like?”, I can ask, “What should this plumber's website look like?”

Those are very different questions.

I like when somebody notices

One of the nicest things a client can tell me isn't necessarily that their website looks professional.

Of course I want it to look professional.

But I particularly like hearing that people comment on it.

Or that somebody remembered it.

Or that a customer mentioned a strange detail I spent ages making.

Because it means some of that care made its way through.

The person visiting the website obviously doesn't know what I was thinking while I made it. They don't know which section I rebuilt five times or which stupid little detail kept me awake.

They just know the site feels different somehow.

I like that.

It feels like somebody has picked up on something I put there without me having to explain it.

More than a job

There are plenty of parts of web development that definitely do feel like a job.

Debugging something inexplicable at midnight is not particularly transcendental.

Neither is updating DNS records.

But the fact that the work contains those boring bits doesn't really change how I feel about the creative part of it.

I get to spend a significant amount of my life making things that didn't exist before.

Every so often, somebody gives me enough freedom to make something genuinely strange or beautiful or funny or just very specifically theirs.

Then it goes out into the world and people actually use it.

I think that’s pretty special.

Maybe calling web design art is stretching the definition.

Maybe it isn't.

I'm not particularly interested in settling that argument.

I just know that when I look back through the things I've made, I don't only see client projects.

I see periods of my own life.

And I think that's probably why this has never really felt like just a job to me.