I've wanted to make a portfolio website for a very long time. But as life would have it, something always came up that took my mind off the task. I managed a first attempt at a portfolio website about 6 or 7 months ago but I went the route of making it overly complex with animations and styles. Eventually, it was ready to go live, but it felt too much like an artistic statement and I was no longer sure I liked it. I wanted to start all over.
So here I am working on what will hopefully be my public portfolio. My goal is to keep it simple and clean and to practice my craft in order to not only improve my skills and explore new technology but also to showcase my work and have a long living software project I can work on long-term.
What Tech?
I've decided to use the tech that I both like using the most and that I have the most experience with. Namely, Next.js -- which is a Meta framework for React. For styling, I'm going with Tailwind, which recently just released version 4. As of right now, that's really the only tech that's being used on the website.
In the near future, I'd like to incorporate a number of other tools and features to this website including Storybook, Rive, Spline, Ads, possibly a profile system and newsletter signup as well.
Why a blog?
I wanted to include a blog feature to the website because I'm already in the habit of journaling on a regular basis and I rather enjoy the writing process. After journaling for this past year, it was insightful to be able to look back on my thoughts and see how I'd changed and what I had accomplished. Writing down your thoughts and goals can help hold you accountable.
A blog is also a great opportunity to make use of a lot of different features in Next.js like dynamic SEO and static page generation. It gives me a good opportunity to make a number of pages and possibly even incorporate a CMS. If I learn a new tool, I can also write about it in addition to implementing it on the website.