Solutions
Solutions are the things I’ll actually do, in designing this site, to satisfy my reasons. In fact, I’ve already arrived at some solutions. Using Tumblr immediately prepares this effort for simplicity. So does beginning from scratch. And using Tumblr assures followability and subscribability via parts of the service that I don’t have to maintain.
Consolidating Nice Web Type’s notes blog, bookmarks, and Twitter favorites probably means I’ll need to distinguish these kinds of posts from one another. I’ll have to reconcile these kinds of posts with the kinds of posts that Tumblr allows me to compose (text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio, video).
We’ll see as we go whether there are inherent complexities to resolve. If bookmarks and favorites are imported automatically as RSS feeds, how can they be made to look like different things? If I share a video snippet from elsewhere (the equivalent of a bookmark) should I make it look like a bookmark, even though it’s not one of my bookmarks?
I’ll want to date, permalink, and tag each post, and offer links for easy sharing. Plus some kind of search/archive, pagination, and whatever navigation I’ll construct to move from this tumblelog to other pages at Nice Web Type and back (with subdomains, a la Frank Chimero). And I’ll want all the native Tumblr functionality (likes, reblogs). I wonder if I should begin referring to functionality bundles as stacks. Blog stack, Tumblr stack…
As with reasons, the disclaimer here is that solutions can be modified as we go. I could spend all kinds of time nailing things down now, only to change my mind once I learn a bit more about Tumblr, or have a new idea. Best to get the basics squared and move on. Next up, I’ll explain what “emotions” mean in the context of my design approach.
