I love the word Zhuzh. I heard it first in a stylist’s chair, as we experimented with new and different ways to make my hair stand on end.
Our friend Merriam-Webster has the following to say:
In web design, it’s also fun to Zhuzh. Sometimes, I wait until the basic design is done before I bring it in. In other situations, it helps energize me and the design, even if we end up tweaking it later.
My main zhuzh tool? Pexels video. A royalty-free, fairly sophisticated, and super-varied collection of thousands of clips, mostly silent.
Need a striking banner background on your Squarespace site? Start there. Want to give your visitors a lovely surprise in the footer (my favorite trick)? Put a complementary, subtle video underneath at .5 speed or so, and soften it with an overlay so the copy on top is easy to read.
A few weeks ago, I wanted to experiment with the potential of Pexels, so I took a song I wrote (Looking Glass) and searched for videos that expressed the feel as closely as possible. Pexels delivered. It was a humbling experience. And gave me new respect for those of you who work with moving image.
I’m into Terrence Malick. Memories of his 2016 film Song to Song came to me as I finished up. A poem that Faye reads near the end:
For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
~William Blake
