Rebuilding My Website From Scratch

I've rebuilt this website almost every year since 2020. Sometimes I swapped frameworks and other times I redesigned everything just because I could. Although every redesign taught me something new, eventually I realised I wasn't improving the site anymore. I was just restarting it.

Recently I've been trying to refocus and declutter my digital footprint, and realised this cycle of rebuilding would continue endlessly if I didn't gave myself actual constraints and a clear goal.

Now, the reason for this rebuild wasn't only visual. Sure, my design language has changed over the years but this wasn't the time to reach for Figma and spit out a new layout change, again.

The previous revisions was built by someone who thought complexity looked impressive, and more felt like better. I used to mistake complexity for craftsmanship. Over time, I have instead become more interested in removing things than adding them.

With that, It had grown to a scattered codebase with unnecessary custom hooks, overly complicated components and patterns that had no place in a simple project like this. It was over-engineered and didn't represent me anymore.

To minify and simplify proved to be a struggle when there's always another idea you want to experiment with and more interactions to implement. This time however, I took a different approach and set up clear constraints for this version:

• It should be performant with instant load times. Bundled JavaScript should be kept to a minimum and external dependencies should be used with restraint.
• It should be simple, considered and focused. Components has to earn its place and interactions has to mean something.
• It should be easily maintained. Working with the site should be exciting, not dreading. Publishing new articles, interactive components or photography should be quick and straightforward.

The design was inspired from Emil Kowalski, Paco Coursey, and Carl Barenbrug. What spoke to me is their intentional and minimal approach, where details matter without begging for attention.

I started from scratch with a clean directory since I wanted to be free of the previous, deprecated structure and old components. Then it became easier to make new decisions with the requirements in mind.

It's definitely not perfect, and this will probably not be my last rebuild. A few years from now, I'll most likely look at this revision the same way I currently look at the previous ones. But right now, this feels lighter, more honest and more like mine.