This site: the refresh
A personal home for my projects, ideas, and conversations — with an expressive print-inspired identity, flowing graphics, and a little Miami light.
- Who it is for
- People curious about my work, what I am thinking about, or a conversation we could have.
- My role
- Product, design, writing, and engineering.
- Where it stands
- Live and being refined in public. This page is part of the product.
Next.js · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS · WebGL · AWS Amplify · Lambda + SES
The problem#
The old site was a brochure. I wanted a personal home that showed what I build, gave my ideas somewhere to develop, and made it easy for someone to start a conversation.
That called for more than a new palette. The writing, project pages, navigation, and contact flow all had to serve those three purposes.
What I built#
I kept the Next.js foundation and changed the direction. The site now brings together project write-ups, longer articles, field notes, and a revisable point of view. The visual identity pairs expressive typography with engraved currents, warm paper, coral, and sea glass; the source is available on GitHub.
Decisions that mattered#
- Keep the foundation, change the purpose. Reworking the existing codebase let me spend time on what a visitor should understand and where they should go next.
- Build the visual identity into shared tokens. Semantic color names make it possible to refine the palette across components and both themes.
- Let motion earn its place. The page transition became a short breath through paper, with reduced-motion behavior and fallbacks. The design write-up documents that work.
- Make contact a real path. The form submits through Lambda and SES, with validation and spam controls, so getting in touch is part of the product rather than decorative copy.
What I learned#
A distinctive interface still has to get out of the way of reading. The earlier transition was visually heavy; making it shorter and lighter was a better fit for moving between pages. The same consideration applies to the rest of the site: atmosphere should support the work someone came to see.
The next question#
Can a first-time visitor find a project, understand what I learned, and reply with a thought of their own? That is the experience I am continuing to refine. The code and the site itself make those decisions visible.