Designing systems is hard. Designing simple, easy-to-use systems is harder. Figuring out where to start and the structure is often the hardest. If you get the starting point wrong you will find yourself starting over from the beginning more than a handful of times.
Content and Design have a dependent relationship. Without content you have nothing to show but without design you have no way to show it. One without the other is useless.
At the same time, content must be constructed based on the way it is intended to be displayed and consumed. Content that doesn’t account for the design will lead to confusion and messiness. Design that is created without knowing the type of content to be used will often be misaligned for the message being delivered.
Biographies are not (typically) meant to be consumed in an ad hoc, random fashion. You would want more structure and searchability (both visual and digital) to the design. However, case studies may be best when displayed in a less structured method.
Process steps are best when displayed in some linear flow. If you display a process in a non-linear order then it won’t make any sense. Similarly, displaying whitepapers or blog posts in a linear (time-based) manner may be discounting some of your best writing that gets pushed down just because it isn’t the newest.
Design and Content is a never ending give and take. There is not one best way to display a given type of information just as there is no one way to design an application, system or webpage. The next step in the thought is that Design dictates Brand (also known as the Apple phenomenon). How you build and design gives clues as to who you are and how you think.