You know that website you keep coming back to? It’s the content that makes you return. It’s not the font, nor the colour, nor the layout. It’s the words, the pictures, the story. It’s the laughs, drama, tension, the personality—or utility—smiling back at your from the otherwise hollow glow of your monitor. 

Content is what brings us in.

Content is what makes us stay.

Content is what convinces us.

Content is doing a photoshoot with a particular story in mind. Content is picking words and illustrations that enhance each other. Content is art direction. Content is design. Content is spending half your budget on a fucking amazing animation that in a matter of seconds inexplicably explains your mundane but complicated value proposition and convinces investors you’re the opportunity of the century. 

With good content—extraordinary photography, mind bending illustrations, exceptional infographics, awe-inspiring video, reach-in-and-touch-your-heart words—you don’t need anything else. Good content makes a $50 wordpress theme sing. Bad content, on the other hand, completely chokes your $50,000 artisanal, hand-crafted, web expérience. So why, out of all the meaningless things we fill our process with, is content the thing we pay the least attention to?

Like Cinderella’s stepsisters, we’re chopping off our toes to squeeze into beautiful glass slippers, rather than designing comfortable footwear that fits. 

Illustration by Lulu