My web dev manifesto

(This article was issue 21 of Maps, a newsletter on Digital I co-wrote for Base Design from 2022 to 2025.)

While in life I may still feel like a junior, at least at work, they call me a senior.

In all those professional years of designing and building websites for brands, I have seen how much the landscape has evolved—tools, trends, technologies, and expertise. Gosh, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the never-ending rapid change.

But in this fast-paced digital space, there’s also the comforting constants; best practices that have remained true since as long as I can remember.

Let me give you one example; one approach that instantly ups the quality of any project, and for that reason has shaped our processes at Base: when development and design work together, they elevate one another.

Simple enough. But it takes effort. And for that reason, it is often bypassed. Yet it’s such a valuable principle: development becomes more than just execution; it emerges as an integral part of the design process.

For this newsletter I took up the challenge of writing down ten of my most important best practices in designing and building for the web. Call them my ten beliefs. Disconnected from any particular technology or trend, they were true back when I started, they’re true today, and will almost certainly still be true tomorrow.

I think it’s safe to say that they grew to become ten guiding principles for web development that we use at Base I use consistently (*).

Here they are (I’m sure you’ll recognize the first one)—

A ten point manifesto

01
Development is not end-of-the-line production.
It’s part of our design process from the start.

02
We design for the best case scenario.
But we code for the worst.

03
Performance is part of the experience.

04
SEO matters.
But humans come first, machines second.

05
We build resilience into our products.
They adapt to the ebb and flow of the web.

06
Accessibility is always built-in.
It’s never an after-thought.

07
Progressive enhancement is non-negotiable.
We start with content.

08
We build for people.
Technology serves them, not the other way around.

09
The tech architecture should reflect your logic.
Not just the project’s design.

10
Everything we produce is an opportunity to enrich your brand perception.

Random finds

→ Did you know Base also has a Design Manifesto?

→ This website is a collection of design manifestos. Inspiring.

→ “If we do the right things we’ll make money damn near automatic.” One of the best brand manifestos out there is definitely Nike’s, originally published in 1977.

From my camera roll — September 27th, 22:40, Antwerp.

Brian Roettinger at Us By Night talking about his work for the band No Age.

(*) Since I don’t work at Base anymore, can’t want to speak for them no more. Still it was at the time of writing :)

Until next time,