Toward the end of last year, I rebuilt this website. It wasn’t something I had planned, but sometimes those spontaneous projects turn out to be the most rewarding.
I was practicing theme development when I came across the font pairing of Sora and Open Sans. I hadn’t updated my logo’s font since college, Helvetica, and it was showing its age. Sora felt like a much needed refresh. With some minor kerning and adjustments to the “p” and “h,” I was able to create both a vertical version and a usable logo mark.
Open Sans has long been a favorite font of mine; I use it all the time in Google Docs. It’s a significant improvement over the monospace font that had been on my site since 2018. Once I settled on the fonts and adjusted the container widths, the overall site design came together effortlessly.
I wouldn’t call myself a designer, but I do believe that constraints can foster creativity. With that in mind, I opted for an extremely minimal color palette: black, white, and a neon green accent (#39FF14), which you can find applied sparsely throughout the site. My favorite detail is the ‘focus-visible’ outline; try tabbing around to see it in action.
I also used this opportunity to give my personal projects a more unified look. I incorporated icons from Dashicons and Noun Project into the project badges. You’ll also find several illustrations from Izwar Muis on Noun Project, accented with that same neon green.
I’m quite pleased with how the redesign turned out. The site feels fresh, and modern, and better reflects my current style.
What do you think? Feel free to check out the new site and share your thoughts!
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