Frictionless

In my last post, I wrote about cancelling Squarespace in favor of Cloudflare and saving about $350 in the process. The cost savings are nice, but the real headline is removing the friction between ideas and execution. Further upstream is what that unlocks in how I approach my website, and in turn the Studio.

I now approach these sites without restriction. It’s not that anything becomes possible, but I ask more questions about what is possible. This illustrates a limiting belief almost too perfectly. In the Squarespace world, my ideas were confined to the template. Sure, I could swap one template for another look, but I’d only be trading one rigid system for another. Once I removed that model, that friction, I started thinking more about how to express an online identity that reflects more of me and less of someone else’s template.

One of many examples is a fresh approach to connecting a thought piece with an image.

A typical blog post or essay is accompanied by an image of some sort. Nothing new there. Without one, it’s harder to cross-channel promote and market, and there’s no visual hook to pull someone into the piece. Fine. All standard stuff when it comes to writing online. Now with AI, the typical workflow is to ask whatever flavor of AI you prefer to produce an image related to whatever you’re writing about. So we’ve moved from mediocre stock photography to AI slop, and that’s being generous. Like the Squarespace template, we’re trading one bad process for another. Sure, maybe it produces something more original and on-topic. But is it good? Does it invite more contemplation of the piece? Or is it just eye candy to check the box that a visual is attached? I’m guilty of this myself. Here’s an example.

With the Studio, I’m forcing myself to defy convention, ask more questions, and challenge my thinking. One idea that came out of this intentional friction was to use AI to create more original and abstract art tied to the concept I’m writing about. Nothing too literal or obvious, but something that complements the thinking and invites more of it.

The way physical art, architecture, design, and photography move you to stop and reflect, I wanted this imagery to make the same connection in my writing. At the same time, I want the writing to stand on its own. So I created new ways to build connective tissue between the writing and the artwork. I use ‘artwork’ intentionally, because I want the image to invoke thought. Here are the concepts that came forward:

1. Don’t put the image on the same page as the writing. When there’s artwork tied to a piece, I put a link at the top. See The Room for Chaos.

2. When you view the image directly, an animation flips the artwork to reveal how it was made: the exact prompt, the platform, the number of iterations it took, and more. This is the equivalent of reading the placard next to a piece in a museum. The details are only there if you want them, the same way you can choose to ignore the curator’s note and let the work speak for itself. The other reason is transparency. I’m not pretending AI wasn’t used to create the image. And yet I want the image to invoke something with more texture. Something I hope the writing also achieves.

3. I brought this same concept over from the Studio to my photography here on this site. With my photography, there’s no AI prompt involved. It has a certain human purity to it. But I include all of the photo metadata, along with some commentary, when you flip the photo to see the back.

None of this was possible in Squarespace. Once I removed the friction, more ideas started to flow. Another was Marginalia: bringing the analog act of writing in the margin to an online space.

So go look. Click the artwork, flip the photo, read the margin. Then decide whether it invites you in or just fills the space. The friction worth removing was never Squarespace. It was believing the process was already settled. What have you accepted as fixed that was only ever a template?