The latest version of Frank Chimero’s personal website is just great. I love that it’s largely traditional in that the nav is just there on the left, in text form, for anyone to see and click. It’s this kind of understated beauty that reminds me why I love what I do.

The new site from @fchimero is what happens when you get a talented graphic designer who understands web design. http://t.co/KjeHVoI82H

— Mark Boulton (@markboulton) March 4, 2014

In a post about designing + building this latest iteration of his website Frank wrote the following thing that “helped”:

• Acknowledging this thing was for me, in a totally selfish and undefensible way.
• Deciding that I didn’t want to optimize the content, presentation, or manner of making this site for “best practices.” I wanted to listen to what I was doing, so I could make it be what it wanted to be.
• Accepting that it’s okay if the site looks “traditional,” and that I didn’t need to opt into a willfully esoteric design or interaction method to make a “statement.” Blegh to pointless statements.
• Admitting that if I was writing a lot of markup or CSS, I was working against the grain of the web.
• Realizing that optimization (not kilobytes, but aesthetics, approach, etc.) actually kinda makes everything look the same at best, and incredibly forgetable and useless at worst.
• Choosing to follow the path that was fun and educational.

I just love these and I think we all personally need to follow this list more.