This website just got a new look.
The last time I redesigned this site was in December 2023. Back then I decided that I wanted to do a complete overhaul, move away from Jekyll to Astro, and come up with a complete new design. Building on top of Astro has been a delightful experience. I can mostly write plain CSS, HTML, and some JavaScript when I need to and rely on Astro’s components to keep my code neat and tidy. Otherwise it feels just like a solid, predictable static-site generator.
The previous design of my personal website was bold, colorful, cartoonish, a little silly. With the current iteration I wanted to move a way from that a little. Tone it down. Aim for a more mellow look and feel. A little less motion. I didn’t want to get too serious, too boring, just a little less in your face.
The new design sports lovely serif fonts, mellow colors with a lovely pastel hue in light mode and a bolder tone in dark mode. The little piggie is still hanging around in the header, don’t worry.
That’s the beauty of running a personal website. I can use it as a creative outlet to play around with a new look and feel whenever the urge hits. I can gather inspiration, sketch out a few things, iterate on them, share previews with my wife and ask for her opinion, and do a complete overhaul of my website in a day or two once I’ve found something that works.
For posterity, here are a few pictures showing what the website looked like before.
Home page in dark mode
and in light mode
Blog overview in dark mode
A blog post in light mode
The same blog post in dark mode