New Look 2026

My old website felt rushed - it never quite matched what I had in mind. So over the period of a month I started working on giving it a new look. The idea: a magical theme, brought to life through subtle details like the starry background, a deeper color palette, and small visual touches scattered throughout.

What changed?

The most obvious change is the darker background and new color scheme. But there's more under the hood too. The site is now even faster than before, thanks to static generation for the blog posts and pages, which I finally implemented after months of procrastination. 😂

The blog list now shows more context for each post - topic, summary, and tags. Posts are also color-coded by topic so you can tell them apart at a glance. In the future, if I'll have more posts, there will definitely be a way to filter/search them.

I switched fonts as well, hoping to improve readability and give the site a more distinct feel. I'm still not 100% sold on the choice though, so this might change again.

I also finally added an About page that provides a proper summary of who I am, my availability, my projects, and a timeline of places I've worked (a curated selection, not the full list).

And after a couple of months of introducing GIFs to my blog posts, I finally found a way to fix them, as they were not being remounted when a client-side navigation was triggered - e.g. going to another page on the site and back to the post.

Oh, and I totally forgot to mention that I added a guestbook. Yes, you heard it right, a guestbook, like the good old days. (Don't judge the design, it's just for the fun of it and is looking as I intended it to look like)

Looking back at 2025

Before I talk about what's next, I want to be honest: 2025 was a tough year.

I found myself feeling disconnected from the creative work that usually energizes me. That disconnect affected me more than I realized, but I'm working through it and learning what I need to feel fulfilled and motivated.

I'm finding my way back by reconnecting with what I love: building things I care about, writing, and having the freedom to explore my own ideas.

This redesign is part of that. It's something I created for myself, because I wanted to, not because I had to.

What's next?

For 2026 I want to focus more on posting on my blog and working on my side projects. I'm planning on posting monthly updates on my game development journey - if I manage to make any progress.

I'm also planning on releasing my first mobile app "Pillly" in a couple of weeks, which is a tiny productivity app to remind you to take your pills on time. Here's a sneak peek:

(Oh, and I'm also planning on releasing Cardia in Q1 2026. I've been slacking on it for too long now and it's time to get this first version out there, to finally get some feedback.)

Here's to a more magical 2026. 🎉🥂🎆