Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Single-Serving Site: One page, one screenful, nothing below the fold. A single element in the centre and margin everywhere else
- Type
- Set in Single-Serving Site's manner (Blow the answer up to the width of the viewport. One typeface, and no other text anywhere on the page), and let Web 1.0's lettering (System sans and monospace) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Single-Serving Site's material (A flat background colour. No ornament and no layering; when the answer changes, only the word or the colour swaps); bring in exactly one thing from Web 1.0 (White background, blue links, dithered images).
- Colour
- Build on #FFFFFF, #111111, #E4002B and admit one accent from #c9c9c9, #0000ee, #111111.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Single-Serving Site Keeping it to one page but adding explanatory copy, share buttons and related links breaks the only rule that matters, and what is left is just a short landing page.
- Web 1.0 Don't regress actual accessibility. Separate the look from interaction quality.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Single-Serving Site (layout, 2008–) and their accent from Web 1.0 (style, 1990s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Single-Serving Site exists for: building a page that answers one question, by putting the answer in the middle as a single word and cutting everything else, or publishing a notice or a status readout on its own domain as one page with no header and no footer. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Single-Serving Site - The domain name is the question and the page holds nothing but the one word answer - No heading and no paragraph, just one word or one image occupying the middle of the screen - No menu, no search and no footer links, so there is nowhere the visitor can go next - Titles that can be answered yes or no, in the manner of Is It Christmas? and Is Twitter Down? Composition: One page, one screenful, nothing below the fold. A single element in the centre and margin everywhere else. Type and lettering: Blow the answer up to the width of the viewport. One typeface, and no other text anywhere on the page. ## Accent comes from Web 1.0, used sparingly - Blue links - Low-res GIFs - System fonts - Plain buttons Let one material quality come from it: White background, blue links, dithered images. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #FFFFFF, carry the structure in #E4002B and #111111, and let a single accent come from #0000ee. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: play, rebellion, nostalgia. ## What goes wrong - Single-Serving Site: Keeping it to one page but adding explanatory copy, share buttons and related links breaks the only rule that matters, and what is left is just a short landing page. - Web 1.0: Don't regress actual accessibility. Separate the look from interaction quality. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Single-Serving Site 2008– / Layout / Reading on the Web
A site made of a single page on its own domain that does exactly one thing. Jason Kottke gave the form its name in February 2008, and around four hundred readers wrote in with examples, which is how it settled into a recognised type. There is no navigation and nowhere to go next: the answer fills the screen and that is the whole site.
- Web 1.0 1990s / Style / Digital Retro
Reuses the naivety of the constrained early web as directness and charm. In the 2020s it came back as a movement to take the personal site back, gathering under names like Neocities and Yesterweb.
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