Content management systems, such as Wordpress or Squarespace, have made designing and publishing on the internet easier than ever—but they’ve also obscured the simplicity of HTML and CSS pages. As the capabilities of internet browsers have increased, so too have the tools increased in complexity. It would be much harder for a 15-year-old today to View Source and understand the code structure that built the website they’re on. Every site is layered with analytics, code snippets, javascript plugins, CMS data, and more.
This is why the simplicity of HTML and CSS now feels like a radical act. To build a website with just these tools is a small protest against platform capitalism: a way to assert sustainability, independence, longevity. “When I’m working in HTML, I feel like I understand my own line of thinking, and I’m able to make structures that support that,” web designer and artist Laurel Schwulst told me. “Not many tools let you do that.”