How I built this site.

Designing with an understanding of the web.

I have a solid working understanding of HTML and CSS, and some hands-on familiarity with how reusable web components are made. That helps me think through structure, responsive layouts, typography, and interaction while I'm designing.

This site uses HTML, native CSS, and JavaScript. Shared templates keep repeated pieces like navigation, project cards, and the contact footer consistent. Custom elements also play a role. Working with these patterns helps me understand how a change in one place carries through to the rest of an interface.

The design foundations page shows the colors, typography, spacing, and component treatments used throughout the portfolio.

Where AI fits into my process.

To be honest, I'm very weary of AI. I've always been the person to "do it all" by myself, it let me find new ways to express. I don't like what AI is doing to certain aspects of society as a whole, I hate that leaders think it is an excuse to do some pretty stupid shit. I hate how people have the audacity to copy the art style of my friend, make slop, and throw it in their face. I'd tell you to pick up the damn pencil too.

There's a lot just I'd never imagine using it for because it defeats the point or is the wrong tool for the job. I'm not in a rush to remove meaning from the creative process. You lose out on all the opportunities that come with paying attention to every detail. If you miss it, other businesses will use that to beat you. Many of my most impactful experiential decisions come from investigating every step and discovering a piece of the puzzle was sorely missing.

On this site, I use AI for auditing accessibility, spitballing, refactoring, debugging, and testing. I guess a developer could always turn around, waggle a finger at me and say, "If you want to tell me to pick up the pencil, you should pick up the keyboard!". I mean, I have, I do. I've been doing front-end stuff since Neopets let you customize your profile. But I'm going to be real with you, the code is not the app, and the app is not the business. If Neopets just had a GUI for this when I was a kid I probably would have just used it.

When I do use AI, its honestly pretty rare, it's mostly something I use for the sake of bandwidth, speed, and keeping my train of thought on what needs to be done. Sometimes I don't know jack about how the tech works, but I like to learn about it. I like to hear about the code you are actually writing and the craft of that as well.

Ultimately, I don't think it is meaningful to block my ability to improve my site's accessibility by requiring a 100-hour bootcamp just to say what I want in the language the computer needs.

Authorship and assistance.

I own the portfolio's design direction and make the decisions about its presentation and behavior. The current implementation includes AI-assisted work, including this article. “Built by me” describes that ongoing process, with assistance acknowledged rather than a claim that I wrote every line without it.

The project continues to evolve as I learn, revisit decisions, and improve the experience.

A few credits.

The site uses Albert Sans and Source Serif 4 for typography, Splide for the testimonial carousel, Trig.js for scroll-triggered animation, and Snowpack in the build process. Those tools support the interface you see here.

The source repository is private, but you can find me on GitHub. If you'd like to talk about the design or the process, send me an email.