Introduction
My music project Private Agenda have released music with many different labels and a host of different collaborators. The story of the music we've made is also the story of the relationships with some amazing musical people we've made along the way.
Problem Identification
We needed a way to tell these stories to our listeners, in a way that was less ephemeral than social posts and in more depth than metadata. We've also released lots of physical records, some of which never made it to the internet and we wanted an enduring archive in one place of the projects we'd been a part of... so it was time to take things into our own hands.
Design Process
The design process began with a moodboard of styles, drawing inspiration from archive pages, 90-s era websites, and gig posters. The ‘brutalist’ style particularly caught our attention, as it would allow a clear visual hierachy that would let the album artwork shine.
Next, we focused on the archival aspect. We were looking for a technology that would be robust enough to host our site for years to come, but also easy to edit.
Solution
After careful consideration, we decided on a static site generator for its simplicity, reliability, and low hosting cost. We started by setting up the Jekyll environment and configuring GitHub Actions for deployment. The Tachyons CSS framework was used to create a responsive and fast-loading site, while sticking to the brutalist design principles we had chosen. To ensure easy content management, we integrated the site with Forestry, allowing us to manage and update the site’s content without needing to delve into the code.
Postscript
In a twist that seems straight out of a science fiction novel, GitHub made the decision to archive code repositories in an Arctic vault in 2020. Among the lines of code stored 250 meters deep in the permafrost in Svalbard, you’ll find private-agenda.com. Our stories are safer than we ever could have imagined!
