Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
Show HN: I'll build unstyled projects to focus on functionality (onemonthprojects.dev)
12 points by difradev 884 days ago
5 comments

Buddy I got you, I spent last two days figuring out the colour scheme of my product and still couldn’t figure out the best one. I think I should also go with your approach!!

All the best for your products.

Man, I hate that situation, where you have an idea in your head, write all the functionality in a paper and wast days to find the right colors and at the end hate that project I was starting days ago. That project will never finished. Thanks buddy! Complete your project and let me know!!
> I will use SvelteKit, Tailwind, and... (https://www.onemonthprojects.dev/blog/post/making-25songs)

Doesn't Tailwind force you to use styling (utility classes)? Otherwise every element is reset to absolutely no style, so you can't even tell if an element is a button/link/etc.

Because of this, I use https://v2.picocss.com:

- Allows me to prototype with truly no styling (i.e. no CSS/style tags)...

- Yet get a clean default style that is mobile-friendly.

- Easy to add styling later. (Like add Tailwind, if you wish.)

Example sites:

- https://multi-launch.leftium.com (html source: https://github.com/Leftium/multi-launch/blob/a1ff6a69c224f86...)

- https://tt.leftium.com (html source: https://github.com/Leftium/transform/blob/076d9145f9729b959c...)

- https://gg.leftium.com/r/md (html source: https://github.com/Leftium/cloud9dancehall.com/blob/5816aace...)

I assure you you’ll be more productive. I did something similar a couple months back. I have a long running project which is very complex, and I would repeatedly catch myself wasting time on irrelevant design decisions whenever I was introducing new functionality. So my strategy now is to design with a limited and fixed palette (4 colors), 1 font (same size everywhere), and everything is rectangles with borders plus the same spacing/padding. Best decision I’ve ever made in regards to productivity! It’s not exactly unstyled because I still need to assess usability and accessibility. Turns out everything in an interface can be synthesized with bordered rectangles.
Absolutely agree with you! Anyway my goal is not to delete the style, but focus on content and functionality! I’m so curious to know more about your project, if you want drop the link!! Let’s build unstyled projects and content-driven! :)
It's a good idea.

My main issue is that if you want to build anything these days it kinda has to look at least decent. All depends on your customers and project, but generally expectations towards UI are high these days.

I'm trying something similar where I style my first prototype - but I'm only allowed to use black and white. Forces me to consider layout, but helps avoid the design rabbit-hole.

Yes. Today the most important thing of a project is the UI. I’m agree with you, but look at this site where we are now, is simple and intuitive, this is the goal for me! Could I know more about your project?
Its a cool idea, would love to see more of your projects.
Thanks man! I’ll try to document all the process of all my ideas, check the site or follow me on X :)