The design you see here was born in 2011, with some minor cosmetic changes in between.
In tech years, that’s practically the Stone Age. For over a decade and half, this design has done its job. It was stable, it was mine, and it was “fine.”
But “fine” isn’t the goal anymore. It’s time for an Awesome Upgrade.
The “Dead-End” Homepage
I’ve always operated under a specific assumption: people find my site through Google or a direct link to an article. Because of that, I treated my homepage as a simple digital business card—a photo, a quote I live by, and my social links.
Then I looked at the analytics.
My Google Analytics told a different story. For the last two years, the homepage wasn’t just a landing spot; it was my highest-traffic page. By design, I had created a dead end. If you landed there, you had no idea I was even writing.
The Fix: The new design (crafted by the WPoets team) changes that. In the new design when you land on my home, you’ll immediately see my latest writings. I’ve also stripped away the distractions, dropping the left sidebars on articles to let the typography breathe and moving the project highlights to the footer where they can be found.
Here is the upcoming home page design
This is how the single post page will look like
any feedback on the colour, font and layout is welcome.
The Tech Stack: Why I’m Not Using the “Cool” Stuff
Whenever a developer announces a rebuild, people expect to hear names like Astro, EmDash, or whatever the flavor-of-the-week framework is.
I’m staying with WordPress.
I have two very simple reasons for this:
- Longevity: Can you name another CMS where a theme built 15 years ago still runs on the latest version (6.9) without a total forced rebuild? WordPress is the king of backwards compatibility.
- Flexibility: After two decades in the industry, I’ve yet to find a system that balances simplicity and power quite like this.
Eating My Own Dog Food
I don’t like “straightforward” builds. If I’m doing this, I’m doing it my way. I’ll be rebuilding this from scratch using my Awesome XP framework and the Monomyth FSE theme.
Monomyth FSE is still in its infancy, and this site will be its test bed. By the time I’m done, both the framework and the theme will be production-ready. I’m documenting the whole journey, the wins, the technical debt, and the “aha!” moments as I go.
This is just the beginning. In the next post, I’ll dive into the architecture of the new setup.
Stay tuned.