Just Launched My First Portfolio Website

Welcome To My First Portfolio Website

After creating my first website with Adobe Muse, I wasn't happy with the final outcome so that made me want to create a new website from scratch. This was a big problem because in order to create it from scratch that meant that I had to code, which at the time was impossible because I barely knew how. The main reason why I wanted to create my new website from scratch was because I wanted to have full control over the development process so that I knew everything that was going on under the hood just in case there were any problems in the future. I also wanted my new website to showcase my design work exactly the way that I wanted without making any compromises to the overall design of the website. The visual design changes to my website might be obvious, but the whole structure under the hood has changed for the better. It was a long process, but in the end it was worth it.

Similar Design

When I was thinking about a new design for my website, I already knew that I wanted to improve the overall experience that the user had while visiting my website. I wanted to have a responsive design that would look good at any screen size without hiding any important information. I decided to showcase my design work on the home page so that it would be easy for potential employers or clients to find my work. I also wanted to improve my about page by adding more information about how I got started in design and my design process. Overall, I wanted a fresh new look for my website so that it matches my personal design style that I have developed over the past few years. Below are some comparison images comparing the design of my first website to my new one.

Screenshot of my previous website compared to my new portfolio website
Screenshot of my previous website compared to my new portfolio website

There are some things that I really liked about the design of my first website so when thinking about a new design I took some of those things into consideration. The design changes may look different, but I didn't change that much other than making the overall design more consistent across the whole website. The new design is more refined and polished than before with improved spacing around elements and improved typography. I wanted to improve how the typography looked at different screen sizes because before with my first website the typography was too large at mobile screen sizes. I also decided to improve how the mobile drop down navigation worked by adding a smooth animation when the user opens it. In the end, I'm very happy with how the new design turned out and I don't plan on making any major changes for a while.

Written From Scratch

At first I was thinking about learning bootstrap, but I wanted to challenge myself and do everything from scratch without any help from frameworks like bootstrap or foundation. I didn’t know much about coding at the time so I had to teach myself the basics of HTML and CSS, but later on I learned a little bit about JavaScript and jQuery. It took a long time to learn how to code because I wanted to have a good understanding of what the code did so that if there were any problems I knew what was wrong and how to fix them. It was a big challenge coding my website because I already knew how I wanted my website to look, but now I would have to create that design using only code. Before I started to code my website, I created some requirements that must be included.

  • Google Analytics to track website traffic and statistics
  • Retina image support for high resolution displays
  • Personal blog where people can leave comments
  • Contact form with email validation

After coding my website, I had to do a lot of testing to make sure that it worked well on different browsers and devices. It was a good project to help me learn how to code and I learned a lot in the amount of time that it took me to create my website. This project gave me a lot of experience with coding and a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t work. I also learned a lot about the best practices of web development which will help me a lot in the future when I start designing and developing more websites. After creating my website from scratch, I can now finally say that I’m proficient in HTML and CSS.

Wrapping Up

I’m very happy and proud of how my new website turned out, especially with all the time and effort that I put into it. It was worth the amount of time learning how to code because now I know everything about how my website was built. I currently have a lot of ideas for upcoming projects and articles so there will be more to come over the next few months. But, in the meantime, if you want help with your own portfolio website, or have a question then feel free to leave a comment below or send me an email, I would love to help.