i love messing with layouts (i have a codepen just for that), but they're always super basic... i'm torn between wanting very basic, lightweight, plain stuff, stuff that highlights the fact html — and the internet — are fundamentally very simple and need very little to work, stuff that (hopefully) works with slow internet and old hardware; i'm torn between that and craving spice, interesting web pages, stuff that's silly and feels like a personal collage rather than a sanitized corporate Website. it's tricky! i like visiting others' cluttered web homes, but mine is better when it's simple i guess. i don't have a lot of stickers to show off, is a way to put it.
a lot of people online rightfully criticize the 2010s minimalist home decor aesthetic, for being uninspiring, boring and overproduced. i wholeheartedly agree with those people, but my own bedroom has white walls and tan curtains, by choice. it is, however, far from uncluttered and intentionally decorated. most of the decorative elements are also practical: a thrifted silver bowl to keep jewelry, canvases (that i painted) casually leaning against each other and the wall because i have nowhere else to put them (with necklaces hanging from them as well). how much could you glance of my personality from my bedroom? how about my site?
i don't have much of a point here. i think what i'm trying to say is as much as i love the fun vernacular web or whatever you wanna call it, i'm rather more inclined towards brutalism in my digital buildings, and i don't think "plain" layouts have to be boring or souless. if anything, modern corporate web is a veneer of simplicity masking extremely convoluted code, whereas my "minimalism" is actually simple css on top of and complementing even simpler code. or something.