Layers

There’s a lot of similarities between writing music and building websites. And, in my teens, that’s what I thought I’d be doing with my career; spending my lifetime in a dark room, playing with sounds and tinkering with adding layers upon layers of complimentary vibrations. But all that experience layering tracks on top of each other in my bedroom weren’t wasted when the web eventually caught my attention, and I reckon that in fact this stuff helped me see the benefits of progressive enhancement faster.

Music making is like progressive enhancement in that you start with your drums (HTML), add the bass guitar (CSS), and then sprinkle screaming and synths and solos on top it all (Javascript). Animations aren’t the foundations of a website any more than the vocals are the foundations of a song. They’re important, sure, and they make the thing the thing. But a song can work without them.

This framing also helps me with design too. Words, colors, fonts; these are the foundations of a visual identity and so once you have those three things down then everything else can be built around it.

Layers!