For the longest time I used to envy those designers that had the (time|inspiration) to constantly tweak and change their personal website.

After I spent my first freelancing year without a portfolio and I didn’t starve, I realized that having a shiny personal website helps, but is not required to get people to notice you. So I redesigned my website back in 2011 and promptly forgot about it for about four years.

Since 2011, a lot has happened. And my personal website didn’t reflect those changes, hence this redesign.

Another reason is that I’ve been itching to get away from cumbersome CMS for a while. Don’t tell anyone, but somehow I ended up using a weird mix of Wordpress and ExpressionEngine for my previous blog & portfolio. Needless to say, it was a nightmare to maintain.

I’ve been looking for something lightweight, preferably database-agnostic, that would make updating my website and posting a new blog post a very simple process. So I was ecstatic when I discovered that I could host my personal website on Github using Jekyll. The mere thought of publishing with a git push made me roll my sleeves and get to work (well, that and getting a shiny new Retina Macbook). The design itself took about one hour, but I spent quite some time importing content from Wordpress, choosing the posts I wanted to keep, and making sure (almost) everything looks ok.

I wanted something simple, so I’m very pleased with the result. I hope this change helps me write more this year.

Let me know if something looks off by leaving a comment below.

This redesign was completed at a difficult time. Maria Theodoropoulou, aka acidsmile, was taken way too soon from us last week. Maria was one of the earliest Web acquaintances I had. We didn’t meet much in person since she lived in the UK, but we had lots and lots to talk about every time we did. It’s no wonder my first Twitter mentions were addressed to her. I know she’d have lots of feedback to give for this humble redesign. Maria love, there’s a small group of people back home that will think of you every time they hold a zombo meeting.