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Portfolio website

2026 · portfolio · Astro

This website was born out of two desires: learn about modern web development, and have a convenient place to show off the projects I’ve built and the things that inspire me. On previous attempts, I’d been intimidated by the amount of learning and know-how I’d need to build something affordable and clean. Nothing like AI-copilots and employment gaps to teach you something new.

Requirements

The requirements for this site were pretty clear in my head. The website must:

  1. Only serve to emphasize the content it presents.
  2. Be as cheap as possible to build and maintain.
  3. Be built from scratch (no wordpress, squarespace, etc.)

Decomposition

Decomposing these requirements into architectural decisions was relatively simple. I needed a minimal site, heavy on written and visual content. I didn’t need much, if any, dynamic elements. This lead to the first, and most fundamental, architecture decision:

  • Astro framework
  • Intentional GSAP usage
  • Minimal color palette

Astro

Doing some research into “how do people build portfolios, and what makes a great portfolio”, Astro popped up pretty early as a popular framework. It serves static HTML, making pages render really quickly. This is especially true if my pages don’t have a ton of interaction- ie ideal for a portfolio.

GSAP

While I knew that I wouldn’t need a ton of interaction, I did want my website to be dynamic. This is where the intentional modifier comes in. The whole point of this website is to showcase content, not for the website itself to steal the show. My intent here is for the animations to be subtle!

Color

Minimal colors across the board, unless you’re on desktop and see the one pop of color I chose to add to the site. Again, like almost all of my other decisions here, the focus should be on my content. Besides this focus, the website’s color palette also reflects my personal aesthetic.

Less is More

The TL;DR of this whole website design ethos is that less is more. Let the website’s design by its nature draw people’s eyes to what matters: the things I’ve done, the thoughts I have, the books I like.