Tech/Skills

• React
• Tailwind
• Web design
• Communication

Summary

I made this site...

I set up a version of a personal site when first dipping my toe into front-end development in summer 2023, hosting it using Github pages (which it still is). I redesigned the landing page and project pages to make it look better, be better to navigate, and better reflect my skills in 2024. And then redesigned it in 2026.

Learnings

Web design isn't easy

This was my first project dealing with a website-like system which (should) work nicely across different device sizes. Using Tailwind CSS helped quite a lot, feeling more intuitive for me to use from my starting point. This was a steep learning curve technically and in terms of what looks good on the screen compared to in scribbled sketches.

Modern (2026) LLMs make websites exciting again

The two redesigns of this site have taken place at different points in the generative AI revolution, and the difference is quite marked. The 2026 redesign took very little outright planning, and most of the redesign was a case of describing the mind's eye. Most of the functionality was achieved with one or two prompts, rather than a longer series of prompts as was necessary in 2024. As such, it feels like quickly iterating on cool web ideas is something that's in reach of a lot more people.

Deep dive

The pitch animation on the landing page is a transplant from the 'build-up debug' app project. The colour scheme comes partly from coolors.co and partly from UI colors.

I think that, while the site is quite clearly a case of 'not a web developer trying their hand at web development', it's a significant upgrade of what was created originally and then redesigned. With the site, I've always wanted to balance detail of my projects with the knowledge that most people just hit a landing page and don't 'explore' a website. In that sense, I suppose a portfolio site is less about normal web development UX (although that's surely changing as we approach a more agentic world) and more about pushing the boundaries and demonstrating one's taste.