When the content model is the actual redesign

Miriam Suzanne has been open about the long, winding path of redesigning her personal website. What started in 2022 as a plan for minimal renovation turned into a new Eleventy repo, then a period of open-ended prototyping that she now describes as “tinkering (complimentary)” — maybe even “procrastinating (also complimentary).” But in the latest update, she brings the conversation back to the problem the redesign was meant to solve in the first place: clarifying the information architecture, for visitors and for herself.

The stumbling block, as she frames it, isn’t visual. It’s content — specifically, figuring out what categories actually describe the things she makes. Her proposed model separates her work into a few distinct types:

  • Events, which happen at a specific time and place — a talk, a workshop, a performance.
  • Artifacts, like a book, album, website, or specification. These have a home URL and maybe a launch date, but they aren’t date-specific.
  • Other channels, projects with their own feeds, events, and artifacts.
  • Organizations, the long-term entities she works with — a band, an agency, a performance company — which often maintain those channels.

She acknowledges the boundaries aren’t clean. A post that stays relevant might read as an artifact, events generate artifacts and vice versa, and an organization might exist purely to curate a channel. But the exercise is about forming a point of view on what a website should hold, not just how it should look.

This is a familiar place to be. Designers and developers often start a redesign from the visual side, only to find that the real work is structural. If you’re lucky enough to work without an inherited design system, content can be the constraint that shapes everything else. If you’re working within an established design, the design is the constraint and you’re fitting content around it. Either way, the chicken-and-egg tension between the two never fully resolves.

Content and design aren’t in competition. A design system is more than a collection of stitched-together components; pairing content with design works the same way. Design’s job is often to enhance what’s already being communicated on the page. Neither one upstages the other, and the strongest calls-to-action, long-form posts, and hero banners come from both working in concert.

That philosophy extends beyond Miriam’s specific case to any personal site project. The purpose of the site is the north star. A portfolio can afford playfulness, but someone filing a tax return doesn’t need whimsical loading animations — although an animated progress bar that gives feedback on the user’s action can be both appropriate and useful. The web is an interactive platform, and the trick is taking advantage of that where it fits: less is often more, accessibility is non-negotiable, and knowing your audience matters more than any trend. Scrollytelling, captioned video, even AR/VR might be right for the right audience, but experimentation only works if you bring everyone along.

Ultimately, a personal site is a statement of who you are and what you want to do. Showcase the work you love and you’re more likely to get requests for that kind of work — a virtuous cycle. And while the web has long been about sharing information and freedom of expression, the personal site remains the one place you can be specific, be different, and be entirely yourself. The sites that feel finished with care and excitement are the ones people remember and enjoy visiting.

The lesson from Miriam’s ongoing process is that a redesign isn’t just a new coat of paint — it’s an opportunity to rethink the underlying model of what you publish. The visual layer can wait. Figuring out whether an album and a talk are the same kind of thing is the harder, more valuable work.