Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication

What if complexity wasn’t the default? Imagine a world where phones lasted a decade, software didn’t need armies of maintainers, and life felt effortlessly manageable. As someone obsessed with clarity and function, I’ve seen how simplicity transforms not just tools but mindsets.

Simplicity isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s a philosophy that shapes everything—from the tools we build to the lives we lead. In this post, I’ll share how this principle guided me in crafting this website, using tools like SvelteKit and vanilla CSS to create something elegant yet powerful.

Building a website today means facing a myriad of choices. Drag-and-drop builders like Squarespace promise convenience, while frameworks like React and Angular offer power—but at the cost of complexity. Overwhelmed by options, I found myself longing for something simpler.

That’s when I came across a surprising example: the Berkshire Hathaway website. Here is one of the largest and wealthiest companies in the world, yet their site is unapologetically simple — plain HTML and CSS. No flashy animations, no complex frameworks, not even styling to speak of. While not being exatly pretty, I was impressed that they didn’t feel the need to complicate things by building a more modern website.

Inspired by this, I decided to follow suit. My goal? To build a site that was lightweight, timeless, and straightforward, using nothing but plain HTML and CSS.

Layout Primitives - Like Platonic Solids, just in CSS

In ancient philosophy, Platonic solids were seen as the fundamental building blocks of the universe—pure, simple, and endlessly versatile. In web design, we have something similar: layout primitives. These are simple CSS classes that serve as the foundation for arranging elements on a webpage.

At their core, layout primitives are about mastering one shape: the box. Everything on a website fits inside a box. Think about it. This post is just boxes filled with text stacked on top of each other. The art of layout is simply arranging these boxes in a way that feels intuitive and functional.

CSS layout primitives allow you to create responsive, elegant designs with just a few lines of code while avoiding CSS-class-bloat. In future posts, I’ll dive deeper into how to harness these building blocks effectively. For now, keep this principle in mind: every great design starts with simplicity.

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