Content.

I’ve played around with three content management systems in the last month. Cargo, Squarespace, and Kirby specifically, but in no such order. It’s interesting to see how all three (and more) are moving or have moved to visual, block-level layouts and formatting for the composition of pages and templates. It’s as if the world has decided that for 99.9% of the web, this is fine. And after fighting this thinking for years and years (when I think about all of the ranting I've done about web design over the years, ugh, just shut the hell up already dude—sorry about that y'all), I’m finally ready to join the masses. However, not so willing to give up my membership to the resistance--since 1999.

It took me about two weeks to wrap my brain around how Squarespace works. There might be several ways to go about “designing” a site with that tool, but the path to clarity was to create a site content first and then tweak the design to fit as best as possible. This is not the way...that I am used to which is to mold the CMS functions to fit the design.

Luke Dorny helped me move Airbag over to Kirby. During the process we’ve had a few chats about the way things were vs. the way things are. Not that one is better than the other, but through conversation, I think we both came to the same conclusion that things are the way they are now and that’s okay. Our identities are not as closely tied to the aesthetic of our content delivery as they used to be. That’s not to say it’s all gone for good, but I don’t think the time and effort weigh as heavily as they once did. The world has moved on.

Maybe it’s all the stoicism I read these days, but it has been liberating to move on and clear my brain to learn new tools. At some point I figure I’ll focus on one system and rebuild everything from there—I just purchased a five-pack of Kirby licenses as they’re currently on sale before the next big version comes out. For now, it has been a fun exercise to let go of the past and embrace a future that doesn’t include so many antiquated expectations.