Version 6

Fresh deli color vibes, typography with extra wonk on a bed of digital garden, and served in a parchment-lined red plastic basket, and a tangy dill pickle spear on the side: Welcome to version 6.

Designing for myself is always a real challenge. Every personal site I’ve ever made felt juvenile and under-thought, so I would stop development after the case studies were done. I’d pour my love for good design into corporate software instead, effectively shelving this project indefinitely. This has been cathartic and important, and loaded with revision.

The independent Web has been making a comeback, and I got inspiration in dozens of other personal-first websites.¹ I kept running into examples of digital gardening,² which seems tedious, but the trick is, I guess, getting the system to maintain itself so you’re not lost in fixing broken backlinks whenever you update your permalink structure.

I don’t have a Links³ page yet, but I wanted to share some stellar examples that moved me along:

§ Some articles about why personal sites matter

• Henry (From Online) turns his writing into works of art. If personal writing could be museum-worthy:
  • A website to destroy all websites
  • How to build a website
• A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden, by Maggie Appleton
• Louie Mantia’s enthusiasm is honestly what got me excited to pick this site up again:
  • The Web Is So Cool
  • How to Make a Damn Website
  • Why by Hand?
  • And those are well and good, but it’s the ease and frequency that he shares more than just the salary-bumping material, like in Nothing to Show for It

§ Personal sites that I really fucking love

• Lynn Fisher
• Eva Decker
• JA Westenberg
• The first thing I did last year was run, by Henry (From Online) – One of many articles-turned-micro-site from his digital garden.
• Josh Crain – Toggle between light and dark mode. The color palettes are exceptionally complimentary to each other.
• Rasmus
• Robin Rendle – This online file browser style is impeccably done
• Jedmund
• Chester – We have a shared love of Fraunces
• Andy Bell – Andy’s updating his personal site in two-week sprints so you can learn from his process
• Salma Alam-Naylor – Punk rock as fuck.

There’s lots to do yet, but what I have now is the structure of the website I’ve been trying to get at for years now. Less tinkering, more publishing, and everything can look beautiful. And always, always gratitude to the people who let me ask them every two days to check the website again for feedback.