Whenever I came across well-crafted personal websites, I felt the urge to build one for myself. Unlike many of them, I didn’t want anything fancy, just something simple, content-focused, and intentional.

Another reason was writing. It’s not something I’ve been naturally good at, but it’s a skill I want to improve. That decision was strongly influenced by the video I’m begging you to write essays. If I was going to write anyway, I thought I might as well share my thoughts publicly.

My previous site served its purpose, but it suffered from UI flickering and performance issues. It was built quickly and rarely improved. This rebuild is my attempt to do it properly iterate, refine, and treat the site as a long-term space for writing and ideas.

Stack

For this rebuild, I wanted to keep the stack minimal and focused. I chose to stick with Astro, as in the previous version, use Tailwind for styling, and deploy on Vercel. This setup fits my needs well.

• performant with minimal bundle size
• solid SEO out of the box
• ideal for static, content-driven sites

Inspiration

I redesigned this site several times before settling on a simpler direction. Inspiration comes from various resources, and Dead Simple Site, Minimum, and D.E are worth mentioning.

Along the way, I came across several personal sites I admire. Subtle choices in layout and restraint influenced the direction of this rebuild. Notable sites:

• Rauno Freiberg
• Lee Robinson
• flo·guo
• Paco Coursey
• Shu Ding
• Florian
• dymtro
• Gavin Nelson
• Onur
• M.A. Baytaş
• Jakub Krehel
• Tommy
• Hassan El Mghari
• Guri
• Chizi Victor
• Shawn Farsai
• Jasur Özhan