[W34-36] Your personal website as a creative medium

"Recruiters please hire me I'm not like other tech bros" 💦

🐝 What I worked on

👩‍💻 mostly coding

I set out to build a personal website that’s actually fun to look at.

At first, I thought of it as a flaunting exhibition of my ability to code, and the fact that “I’m not like other tech bros” whose website is a mere repetition of their resume. With this, I hoped to woo recruiters so I wouldn’t be jobless.

Ok, let’s get on designing.

Of course, the enthusiasm met the blank notebook without any visual idea.

But now I’ve learned that any creative block means a mental block, not a lack of ideas. I explored why I was having a hard time even coming up with a layout.

All the challenges of designing a digital interface for yourself

Noting down these blocks, it became clear that I didn’t want to just make a website for recruiters who would spend less than 30 seconds there. It became clear I didn’t want to make it a glorified resume of my tech work. Clear that I didn’t want it to be a desperation for a job.

I want it to say “Hey, if we vibe, you can connect with me.”

Hence, the order of priority for the audience of this page is:

(1) Potential randos who’ll vibe with me. I want this website to be a touch point, similar to how this Substack serves as my implicit, dynamic personal value statement.

(2) Me: A fun design and coding exercise

(3) Recruiters

With an emphasis on connection, I need to make this website especially welcoming. I noticed that the “Contact” page on most personal websites is impersonal - phone number, email, or a comment box. I’d be hesitant to reach out “just to say hi” if all I wanted to say was “your website is cool.” It leads nowhere. Instead, it should be personal, welcoming, and specific.

We can start with the hero image. I’m envisioning a looping video with a friend I met because of her website, something like this:

artwork by Craco Illustration

For the text, I’m very inspired by this French designer’s personal website. I’d like to create a similar text animation effect for the phrase “You can connect with me.” The text coming together emphasizes the meaning of the phrase.

https://maelanlemeur.com/

I will also put in prompts or easy suggestions on what they can connect with me about. Such as “Let’s talk about how to use urban forestry to restore native habitat.” or “Wanna collaborate on a creative project together?” or “What did you resonate with?” or “Say hi I won’t bite.” Here, I’m open to suggestions from you, readers.

The /connect page won’t be the only touch point for connection. The Navigation bar has two buttons, “Menu” and “Connect with me”, displayed throughout the website.

In the main /projects page, where I showcase my projects, there will be a mysterious section. When you click on it, it will lead to /connect page where I suggest that we can collaborate =).

Even the simple phrasing of “Connect with me” instead of “Contact me” feels warmer. I’d consider this a successful project if a rando reaches out to me from this website.

So far, I finished the layout of the Home and Project pages. I’m quite proud of the home page. It says “Welcome to Trang Doan’s space,” and it’s actually an interactive space 🪐.

Waaa so much work. But this might be the most fun I’ve had with coding. I code while waiting for a dance class, while at Chase waiting to open a bank account, and first thing of the day sometimes.

I know, the design still needs fixing. This is why I’m hosting a skills exchange with my designer friend today, where he’ll teach me design and how to improve this page, while I teach him how to make mapo tofu. I’m also learning lots and lots about visual design through “Primer to Visual Literacy” by Donis A. Dondis and “A Type Primer” by John Kane. The force of curiosity propels me to read these boring academic books that I would’ve flinched before. That makes me happy.

👁️ some writing.

Random break of coding with writing “What good therapy means,” a piece that weaves my experience in therapy and dance.

🥡 Takeaways

I failed at this project three years ago I couldn’t use React Router, despite having spent a month working on it.

Three years later, I created the backbone of the website in 2 days 🤯. I was proud, for being more capable. But also I’m so grateful for ChatGPT. It has made learning so much easier. I have an incentive to actually pop under the hood and understand the technology because the activation energy is low. You simply type “explain __ in an easy-to-understand way.”

As a hired software engineer, AI was a looming threat to take over my job. As a creative person, AI has become an amazing tool that unlocks possibilities. The more I use those tools, the more convinced I am that soon the current form of software engineering will become obsolete. Making a website or a digital product would be more like building legos - pre-made blocks offered to you based on your description. The bar of entry for the skills level you’d get paid for would be much higher, similar to how no one pays for typists anymore because personal computers were invented. That means you will get to and have to rely more on creative and humanistic senses to actually create value. This excites me.

🧐 Question of the week

• Too many career crises to explain in a question. Just send hugs, thoughts, and prayers 😌.

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This is the week #34-36 update of my daily creative challenge, as outlined in the Re-manifesto of this blog. I’m inspired by MỞ - Mơ và Hỏi’s course, Writing On The Net 2 (#wotn2), and all my friends who write and create consistently!