The rise and fall and then rise again of the personal website is a beautiful thing. That little corner of the world to express yourself, without the bounds of industry pressure, without hiding behind paywalls, without giving your information away to another entity, to just divulge what interests you... it's incredibly calming.

Illustration of woman and her dog working on her personal website

Working away on those personal sites with good doggos. Illustration by Drawkit

Tim Berners-Lee always envisioned an open web and a personal site gives you the ultimate freedom of expression. For years, I've had a personal site in various incarnations that eventually fell to the wayside of microblogging platforms like Twitter & Instagram, etc... Life evolved too. I got married, had a son, and time became more precious than ever. However, despite all of this, it always felt like I was missing a purity and sense of self when not designing and building my own site from scratch. Those people that do struggle with a personal site know that feeling well.

My plan with this version of the site is to try and keep things brief and what interests me. There might be a very quick post about x or y on a topic I enjoy, a personal post, or I might want to express feelings on the design industry at large and my experiences working within agency and product realms. If I'm being honest though, it's less frequently going to be the latter. It's hard to think work 24/7, especially during a very difficult 2020. Also, time is precious these days in my life but what I do love most about personal sites are those little insights into the people behind the industry jargon. A peek behind their interests, what rounds them out as individuals.

So stay tuned, grab a coffee/beverage of choice, relax, and thanks for reading.