Town Highlight #2: Brad Woods’ Garden

I’d had Brad Woods’ garden bookmarked for a long time and liked it well before TownSquare existed. Seeing a site I already cared about using something I’d built was a lovely feeling.

Part of what made that discovery so special is the garden itself. It feels more like a place than a publication: a growing collection of ideas, experiments, and pieces that are allowed to remain unfinished. Its notes can be seeds, sprouts, mature, or even decaying. That language is not a content strategy; it is an invitation to be curious in public.

Brad makes his own versions of things. In the garden, that means treating the browser as a creative medium, not merely a container for information. It also means leaving room for personality, strange details, and the sense that a website was made by someone rather than assembled for an audience segment.

Behind the garden is Brad Woods. He verified his site on TownSquare on June 28, 2026, which happened to be my birthday (another fun surprise). We stopped by to talk about unfinished ideas, the early web, software with “juice,” and the web he would like to see rewilded.

The Interview

Your garden feels deliberately different from a normal blog. Why did you want to build a place rather than just publish articles?

I like making things. If I'm making something for myself, I want to make it my way. In my own style. When I wrote my first article, I didn't just want to write words, but also decide how those words were displayed. It wasn't just an article; it was my version of an article. The garden's design grew from that.

I take every opportunity to create my own version of things. It's a continual process of discovering and refining what you like and don't like. The more you do it, the more you develop your own style, the closer you get to something unique and valuable.

Your notes can be seeds, sprouts, mature, or even decaying. What have you learned from publishing ideas before they’re finished?

It's freeing. I constantly fight an urge not to publish something until it's “perfect.” Using labels like seed reduces that urge. It intentionally says, “This article is about a topic that is new to me. There are probably a lot of mistakes. I'm just here to learn.” I prefer something messy, with wild ideas and lots of mistakes, to something safe and polished.

I think labels also make the blog more authentic and honest: a living thing that changes over time. Like a garden. Like me.

You’ve said you want to “rewild the web.” What do you think the web became too optimized for, and what would a more wild web look like?

My fondest memories of the web were from the early 2000s. My friend was part of a Quake clan and one of the members made a Flash website. It had a dark dungeon design with a glowing orb that followed the cursor, emitting light. Visiting that site felt like playing a new video game for the first time. It was unique. It wasn't created by committee for mass audience appeal. It was created by someone who thought that design would be cool.

Back then, a lot of websites were like this. Surfing the web felt like going to vastly different places. Now, a lot of the web looks the same. People use templates or put content on platforms like Substack or Instagram. Creativity is sacrificed for maximising ease of use, conversion, and addiction.

A lot of your work seems to treat the browser as a creative medium, not just a container for information. What do you think we’ve forgotten the browser can be?

Motivation to explore and create on the web has been lost. We're now flooded with infinite content, selected by an algorithm, to keep us consuming. In the past, there was a balance between consuming and creating.

You write about “juice” and the emotional side of software. What separates software that merely works from software that feels alive?

If you compare two watches, a Casio and a Rolex, they both provide the same functionality: they tell the time. However, one costs $100 and the other $25,000. The Rolex costs more because of how the time is displayed and the story behind the brand. Juice is about adding things on top of the core functionality: to make it more intuitive, to add story, to make the user feel something. The separation is when you get a sense of craftsmanship behind a piece of software.

There’s a tension between usability and playfulness. If every interaction is surprising, a website becomes exhausting. How do you know when an experiment adds delight and when it just gets in the way?

Before I start making anything, I define a goal: why this thing exists. Everything I add should help achieve that goal. If something doesn't support or impedes it, I remove it.

What are you exploring or experimenting with right now that you’re particularly excited about?

I'm building a website for a podcast I recently started with a friend. I'm designing it based on the Braun TP1 radio. I admire Dieter Rams and I'm interested to see if I can adapt some of this aesthetic to a website.

I’d been following your garden for a long time before TownSquare existed, so seeing TownSquare appear there was a funny full-circle moment for me. What made you add it, and did it change how the garden felt to you?

I've been looking for a way for the garden to feel inhabited. I considered adding a chat window but changed my mind when I saw TownSquare.

I like how it renders a scene with representations of users. It communicates other people are here with you, without forcing people to chat. I plan to reskin the scene to a cyberpunk theme.

If someone only explores one thing in your garden, what should it be?

Juice— it's the most valuable article on the site.

What’s one website, project, or strange corner of the web that has inspired you recently and that more people should see?

Astartes. I don't play Warhammer 40,000, but I'm fascinated by the lore. I regularly search YouTube for fan content explaining it or fan fiction. A year ago I came across a fan-fiction short film, Astartes. I was in awe of the quality of the cinematography and the efficient storytelling: how well it tells an understandable story while also creating mystery. It's inspiring. I heard the creator has since been hired by Games Workshop and Astartes 2 will be released soon.

A more personal web

Brad’s garden makes a quiet case for the personal web: software can be useful without being impersonal, ideas can be valuable before they are polished, and a site can feel more like a destination when its maker’s taste is allowed to show. The roads to the garden remain open.

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The Town Square Gazette provides a place for residents to share their thoughts and stories. Opinions expressed in interviews belong to their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the TownSquare team.