2 Jul 2022

Reading List

I’ve created a Reading List.

When I designed it, I knew I wanted something different from my watchlist, which I’m no longer a fan of. I like the neat grid of Daniël van der Winden’s reading list, and admire the effort and detail of Justin Duke’s. I am not yet writing substantial reviews, so de-emphasizing reviews would probably do me just fine, but I don’t want to encourage that habit. So perhaps the empty space of my page will inspire me to write more? Or at least, it would shame me every time I look at it.

My reading list page, showing a short description at the top in big text and a listing of my latest read book.
The current design – version 1.

The design is sort of based on another design draft I made, for a different project—the font is Editorial New, and I wanted to have a big blob of text at the top. I wrote the blurb for the sole purpose of filling out four lines of text, which to me is an aesthetically pleasing length.

I used Poppins as the body text, because my site’s main typography featuring Tiempos Text didn’t seem to fit.

I’m reaching the point where I think I should make an attempt at creating a ~*~design system~*~ so my CSS isn’t in disarray.

My reading list uses the colour palette of the main site, but none of the typography; my layout method is sort of the same (using grid for most things); my spacing is probably the same. I duplicated a bunch of stuff over, deleted what I didn’t need, wrote some new stuff. It’s very messy.

So the things I should make a system are:

  • Spacing – margins, padding, that sort of thing
  • Layout utilities – how do I centre things
  • Colour palettes – light mode! dark mode! clown mode! etc.
  • Overall, some kind of scaling system. I’m starting to fiddle with using vw and clamp for responsive typography and such, but it’s not something I have a strong grasp on yet. This can be applied to the spacing and layout.

Also, my CSS at scale needs work.

I haven’t linked this on my homepage yet, simply because I would have to fix up how my neat 3-column media diary section is laid out, and I don’t feel like doing that at the moment.

On reading: I don’t read much these days (I’ve said, for the past 5 morbillion years), but this month I’ve picked it up again as an activity for when I’ve been struggling to fall asleep. It feels much nicer than scrolling through social media feeds, though it’s sort of a trap because I’m inclined to finish a book even at an unreasonable hour.