@numericcitizen @pimoore I wrote about this in two blog posts. bjhess.com/blog/2022… & bjhess.com/blog/2022…

The latter mentions some of my inspirations toward the end. I think for me it feels good to eliminated as many in-between / setup steps as possible. At least it feels good for now. :) I am currently trying to keep the design consistent across the history of posts, but I’m not sure if that’s a great idea. Some folks will include the full CSS file in each blog post’s folder, basically locking each post to the design that existed when it was posted. I kind of wonder if this is the way to go long term as it lets you release from the troubleshooting of keeping the design up-to-date, especially when you have to do a global find and replace of markup to make sure it works. It also seems kind of fun to have the blog posts themselves indicate the site’s design evolution.

If you really like playing with the visual, tweaking the design for every post intentionally could also be fun. You want to be conscious of that choice, though, because it will slow down writing progress. For some that design activity might be motivating to create, for others it would get in the way.