A portfolio is an instrument, not a trophy.

Why I rebuilt this site until it felt like a desk I actually wanted to work at — and why “good enough” is never the brief.

I have made a lot of portfolios. The first one had a particle background, a typing animation, and a photo of me trying very hard to look approachable. It was bad.

This time I treated the site like a product. The résumé is searchable. The terminal is real-ish. The projects have dossiers because calling them “case studies” felt too agency. Every pixel is monochrome because I am tired of pretending I have a brand colour.

The real goal was not to impress recruiters. It was to make something I would enjoy maintaining. That is the test most portfolios fail: they look great on launch day and embarrassing three months later.

If you are reading this while building your own site, my advice is simple: pick one weird thing and make it excellent. For me it was a fake terminal that can turn the lights on.