So I paused most of my other projects and decided to just rebuild it properly.

A big spark for this came from a designer/software engineer, itsjay.us. His site design genuinely blew me away and pushed me to actually try building something with real intention instead of grabbing a template. Huge shoutout to him for that.

I started in Figma, sketching out layouts and flows. I looked at a bunch of other portfolios first just to get a general feel for what's out there, but the actual plan I ended up sketching by hand on paper, the flow, the animations, all of it. Building it meant learning some new stuff too: Motion.dev, GSAP, and the Canvas API.

AI helped me write cleaner code along the way, but it was consistently giving me bad design instincts, generic gradients, safe choices, nothing with personality. So I took the design decisions into my own hands. I picked the colors myself, kept it simple and easy on the eyes instead of going loud. I hid a few small easter eggs in there too, little details like the number 11 repeated throughout, a nod to my birthday, 11/11.

The animation where my name slides up and my work title appears piece by piece was actually inspired by Frank Ocean's "Pink + White," specifically how the beat fades in and out at the start. I happened to be listening to it while working through the flow, and it just fit.

In the end, the portfolio came together, and it got genuinely good feedback. It also shaped an opinion I stand by now: AI tools are fine, even good, for a lot of things. But for a portfolio specifically, I think you should take full control of it yourself. Don't lean on some template a million other people are using. Build something that's actually your own branding, your own decisions, your own taste.

That's just where I land on it.

Thanks for reading!