why i rebuilt this site

i shipped the first version of this site a few months ago. it had a space-themed background — nebulas, parallax stars, the works. i liked it. and i also liked it less every time i opened it.

the issue wasn’t that it looked bad. the issue was it looked like every other portfolio on dev twitter circa 2023. emerald accent, glassmorphic cards, dark mode by default, a tagline about being “passionate about clean code.” the surface area was generic even when the content was specific.

what changed

a friend of mine (mubarak) shipped his site recently and it just had vibes. lowercase, a little irreverent, monospace heading, basically zero ornament. it felt like him — not like a designer’s mood board.

that was the unlock. the goal isn’t to look modern. it’s to feel like a place a specific person made.

what i did

a few decisions:

• dropped the nebula. the background is now a quiet dot grid with a faint primary glow at the top. it gets out of the way.
• switched to geist. geist sans for body, geist mono for prompts and tags. one font family, two purposes.
• lowercased everything. headings, nav, badges. it’s a vibe shift more than a design system.
• added shadcn primitives. buttons, cards, badges, separator. consistent, small, easy to extend.
• added a /now page because i wanted somewhere honest to write what i’m actually doing instead of a static “about.”
• added this blog because, well, you’re reading it. low pressure. occasional notes.

stack

astro 5, react 19 (for islands only), tailwind 4, shadcn/ui patterns. zero radix yet — i’m trying to keep the bundle small for now.

what’s next

a few more posts when i feel like it. tightening the project case studies. probably a dark/light toggle eventually. that’s the list. nothing earth-shattering.

thanks for reading. → home