Time Spent
4.5 hours
Outcomes & Reflections
Designed a brand-aligned custom logo using ChatGPT and Inkscape.
Established a styleguide based on mountains, biomimicry, and vitality.
Noticed 1.2k unique visitors, validated early imperfect release strategy.
Planned structural improvements for the About page and landing hero.
Unfinished Tasks
Implement “Work in Progress” banner and project timeline page.
Migrate profile image to About page with story.
Add parallax and animated elements; finalize palette.
Improve CTA layout and color scheme harmony.
Field Journal
Preparing for a visual design and cohesive styleguide for my personal brand! Had a ton of fun collaborating with ChatGPT and Inkscape to create a custom logo that represents a number of concepts I believe in. I wanted the logo to contain my initials, while conveying the flourishing and vitality I intend to support in our people, systems, and environment. I chose a form that traced my initials, made the shape of a lifeline, and formed a mountain and valley range. The mountains represent the alignment with our natural, self-correcting systems through biomimicry and interdependence, as well as the strength and resilience that comes from building intentionally. The lifeline conveys the heartbeat, the vitality of our society, the health of our people, and the flourishing of our environment.
I noticed I have had 1.2k unique visitors since I launched the portfolio on May 21st. Excited to see how many individuals have been looking me up, and also feeling a sense of success with the experiment of “release before it is perfect.” I’m sure a small percentage of those visitors noticed the small bugs, the unfinished layout, and the bare design and thought “is this it?” — and that’s fine, because a greater percentage of those visitors saw the portfolio as a quick and effective source of information that conveyed my skills, while being a work in progress.
I plan to add a “Work in progress” line to the landing page, linking to a hidden “Project timeline” for the portfolio showing what I plan to do before it is “complete.”
Getting colors in has been a great process, and I’m close to a nice color palette. Time to get feedback! I’ll move the picture of me to an About page that can convey my coherent story. Then I plan to create some floating animated graphic elements throughout the page, a grain/noise overlay, and some parallax.
I want a strong above-the-fold section with a hero, CTA, and distilled graphical info. The landing page will eventually be more like Alex Pate’s site, with selected works for a quick gist. The CTA will link to an email or similar, and I’ll redesign color accents and update the devblog to include filters like Dev, Teach, Thoughts. "Passions" will be turned into a rotating visual icon set with subtitles.