Most personal sites are built like job applications that forgot to put on a jacket. They list tools, paste case studies, and hope the visitor will translate competence into trust. That can work. It is also how a hundred tabs start to feel identical.
I want something narrower and stranger.
A site can be a window. Not a pitch deck with nicer kerning - a place where someone can lean in and see how you notice things. Poems that were never meant to convert. Books that left residue. A lab piece that only makes sense if you stay with it for thirty seconds. The point is not coverage. The point is authorship.
Taste is a filter
Taste is not decoration. It is the decision to leave hollow rooms closed. If a page is under construction, it should not be linked. If an essay is a renamed blog post, it should not exist. Peers can smell unfinished ambition from the landing tile.
That sounds harsh. It is also freeing. You do not need twelve sections. You need a few rooms that feel inhabited.
Craft as proof
When you work in design and product engineering, the site itself is evidence. Motion that replays after navigation. A bookshelf that opens without becoming a gimmick. Typography that holds a quiet sentence without shouting. None of that replaces shipping product at work - it just refuses to outsource your taste to a template.
I used to think the hard part was choosing a stack. The hard part is deciding what deserves to be seen.
Leave the door ajar
If this place works, a visitor should leave with a feeling before a bullet list. Maybe they remember a poem. Maybe a word in the lab drifted toward their cursor. Maybe they disagree with a note on the Now page. Disagreement is fine. Indifference is the failure mode.
So I am building less like a resume and more like a room I would actually keep clean. Windows, not resumes. Come in when you want. Stay if something catches.