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My New Website is My Web Manifesto

June 4th, 2022

I’ve been making stuff on the web for over 20 years. I’m a better designer for it, and it helps me work closely with engineers.

This past weekend I launched the new design for my own website. It demonstrates my attitudes to the web, design, and personal expression online.

Here's what I wanted it to be:

At home on the web

With this project I’ve refreshed my memory and tried new things, like Jekyll, grid, flexbox, and CSS animations.

Jekyll let me make my website all the things a website should be:

• Lightweight
  As a static site, it loads nearly instantly and doesn’t get choppy on older devices.
• Responsive
  With complete control over styling, breakpoints are defined by the layout rather than a standard set of device widths, and it looks great at every size.
• Accessible
  Good old semantic HTML.
• Maintainable
  The templating system separates content from code, so it’s easy to update. With GitHub Pages there are no fees for hosting or WYSIWYG editors.

I also plan to add progressive loading images, better link unfurling, and to further improve accessibility.

Designed for the medium

• Content first
  First I wrote the content, then defined the site structure, then the layout, then the visuals.
• Designed in the browser
  I started in HTML and CSS, doodling my responsive nav idea, and grew it from there. I much prefer fine tuning spacing in CSS, as a system, to moving a million layers in Figma!
• Atypical navigation
  I wanted my site to feel a bit different, so navigation is vertical in large viewports, and stacks in very small viewports. Links are visible at every size, with no hamburger menu in sight.
• Readable
  I aimed to create a clear page hierarchy, with headings and highlights to support skim reading. I know that’s how I review portfolios!

Human, and a bit odd

I’ve found, after reviewing lots of designers’ portfolios for hiring, we often come across as cold and practical. I think our pals in engineering are better at owning their passions and quirks. So, finally, I want my site to be more than a portfolio, to feel human, and a bit odd.

I’ve tried to make my personality show through, and I erred on the side of showing more than is comfortable. As Neil Gaiman said:

The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.

In closing

I hope you’ll agree I did what I set out to do.

All the code is available in the GitHub repo, and I’m still working on it, so if you spot anything janky please let me know. See About and CV for social links, or email me.

My thanks to lots of friends for proofreading and troubleshooting, and thank you for reading!