The Boidem is, by design, text intensive. Graphics are used sparingly, and no background image, or navigational buttons are used. There is nothing original in this approach, and most of the (to my mind) good and interesting web sites (either of a personal nature, or those that choose to make extensive use of hypertext) that I've visited have little or no graphics. There seems to be something basic, in the sense of a return to fundamentals, in text intensive sites; it suggests a focus on the essence of the page, rather than on the superfluously decorative. Another, related, reason is the fact that graphics on a site don't really present a challenge. Simply the fact that no effort is required to cover a page with attractive (or supposedly attractive) graphics seems to be enough to cause someone to think twice about making use of them. I refer to this idea as the justified margins metaphor.

Occasionally graphics are required to explain something, or to give an example. My favorite use of graphics was, for instance, the 12th Boidem, from June 1997. In that column I tried to compare between web pages and printed pages, and in the process quoted Shakespeare's 18th sonnet that compares his love to a summer's day. I included a copy of a painting entitled "A summer's day" that I found via the web, asking whether the fact that without any difficulty I was able to put a picture of a summer's day on the page enhanced the reader's understanding of the sonnet. I of course argued that it didn't. Another example of how a graphic element enhances the intent of the text is a "borrowed" graphic - one that, rather than sitting on the TAU web site, actually resides on my brother's web site, but is called up from there via the HTML of a particular Boidem column.

Most of the graphics in the Boidem are comics that relate to the popular assumptions about the internet that abound in our culture. I take a great interest in popular culture, and to a large extent the intent of the Boidem has been to examine how the internet is reflected in that culture. Thus it's logical to include comics in the columns.

Another graphic element, one that has become more prevalent since the start of the third year of the Boidem, has been what might be called scanned elements of my own life: photographs of my first dwellings in Israel, of my work table, of my mother at her house, or simply scanned memorabilia. The influx of elements of this sort, of course, goes hand in hand with greater emphasis on material of a personal nature in the columns themselves.

One other graphic element that perhaps deserves mention here is copied pages. Having fallen victim to linkrot a few times in the past, I've copied web pages that I refer to in the body of a column and posted those copies (both text and graphics), linking both to the original and to the copy.

But it bears repeating: graphics are secondary to the essence of the Boidem, which for good or for bad, is text.

Go to: It's more than just words and links, you know, or
Go to: Trying to make some sense out of all this, or
Go to: An introduction to the extroduction, or
Go to: Web Essays - The evolution of a (personal?) medium