In Defense of Dense Things

Premise

This site looks the way it does on purpose.

That feels worth stating, because the default assumption today is that anything dense, quiet, or slightly uncomfortable must be unfinished, broken, or “in need of polish.” It isn’t. It’s doing exactly what I want it to do.

I built this site to load fast, read fast, and get out of the way. No animations to impress you. No padding added to suggest importance. Just text, hierarchy, and enough structure to let your eyes do what they’re already good at: scanning, skipping, and deciding.

The layout is dense because the content is the point.

Modern web design stretches simple ideas across enormous amounts of space. One sentence per viewport. One thought per scroll. It looks clean, but it feels wasteful — like someone turned reading into a chore you have to swipe through.

This site goes the opposite direction. Posts are close together. Metadata is visible. Navigation doesn’t hide behind clever icons. You can see more without asking for permission.

That choice extends beyond visuals. The whole thing is static, compiled, boring in the best way. Pages are rendered once, served instantly, and left alone. There’s no feed algorithm deciding what matters, no JavaScript trying to keep you “engaged.” (except for the homepage wireframe but that is cool as fuck, it serves no other purpose than that)

If something is here, it’s because I put it here.

Dense design assumes a reader who’s paying attention. It doesn’t beg. It doesn’t explain itself. It just presents information honestly and lets you engage on your own terms.

This isn’t an argument that every site should look like this. It’s an argument that we forgot an entire design language somewhere along the way — one that values efficiency over spectacle and trust over hand-holding.

So if this site feels different, good. That’s the point.

It’s not minimal. It’s not nostalgic. It’s just dense — and intentional.