Redesign and development of my own portfolio site
Why? An old site
For many years, I was into photography and only posted my work on Instagram. Later, I started thinking about creating my own website, but I’m quite a lazy person, so after a bit of research, I built my site using the fabrik.io website builder. At that time, it was the only builder that didn’t try to fit everything into one universal solution for all types of sites, but instead focused more on portfolio design variants. However, in my opinion, both the design and the convenience of adding anything to the site were totally uncomfortable.
Redesign
And finally, +/- month ago, I was in that kind of good mood where I pulled myself together and decided to redesign the site. Once again, after researching what would be the most convenient for me, I stopped on Lunacy as an alternative to Figma, which I already use for the work.
Quickly sketched out a grid system that suited me.
The site’s structure is a separate topic. Although the site was simple, I had outlined the structure in my notebook.
Design and code on the fly
Once I understood my needs, researched the tools and, as described in my blog post, I chose Astro for the static site, Tailwind for convenient CSS manipulation and a mobile-first approach, Windsurf as an IDE, and PhotoSwipe for the gallery. I put it all together in just a few evenings. And now you can see the result here.
On a personal note, Windsurf and modern AI tools really do help speed up the work, but you need to fully understand what you’re doing.
TODO list
Here’s a small TODO list for the future — things that still need to be done:
- Light / dark site themes
- Ukrainian / English language versions
- Add portfolio works from my current workplace
- Some blog / design page updates for better readability and user experience