We’re all familiar with the ebbs and flows of redesigning one’s own website – the glee and the disappointment. Growing tired of that loop of pushing for an interactively interesting site and not finding the right feel, I took a step back. I forced myself to follow the same advice I often give others: do the exact opposite of what I think I should do, what I’ve been trying to do.

At work, design is about finding the balance between my personal taste, my ambitions, formal requirements, and stakeholder expectations. I spend hours poring over research findings, color palettes, layout ideas, prototypes, textural flourishes, the tone of content, and more.

Trying this same approach for my own site didn’t work – I kept hitting that wall. It never quite felt mine. Then I had the realization: I’m not designing for business requirements or stakeholders. I’m designing for me. Time to channel my id and let my instinct get to work.

I love the elegance of simple; a beautifully-typeset book or magazine has me buzzing with inspiration. In a world of AI slop, comment bots, and targeted ads, a page of words and images puts the existential dread on the proverbial backburner.

That’s what I want from my site. What feels unapologetically mine. A simple place for me to share some words, some photos, some books… without worrying about anything but letters on a page. It’s a basic site set in Funnel Sans with a whopping 5 shades of gray (10 times less than a mucky book of yore), but it’s mine, I don’t need anything more, and I love it.