Before/after: from busy and cluttered to the website a Women's Prize longlisted novelist deserves 📚

The before: years of accumulated content. Interviews from 2022 next to news from last week. Three fonts per page. Podcast lists that scrolled forever. A shop button shouting over the books. Everything on the site was true — there was just five years of it, all at once, all at the same volume.

The after: an author website that breathes. ✨ One typographic system: Avenir for the headlines, Baskerville for everything else, set like the pages of a well-made book ✨ A warm parchment palette with one single orange accent, used only where it earns its place ✨ Awards and roles typeset like the prize page of a hardback, not a CV ✨ Every book with its cover, a short synopsis, two quotes and quiet buy links — nothing sold, everything findable ✨ And a second, connected brand for her writing courses: teal, white, plain-spoken, where a writer can find a course, see the price, and enrol without friction

The design brief in one line: warm without being folksy, confident without being corporate. Readers should feel at home. Nobody should feel sold to.

Turns out the highest form of author-website design is subtraction. Her books were always the main event. The site just needed to get out of their way.

What's the best "less but better" transformation you've shipped? 👇