How did I create my first personal website?
Tags: showdev, webdev, career, programming
Published: 2018-11-09 18:01:56

---
title: How did I create my first personal website?
published: true
description: With the little bit of smart work, countless design iterations, a handful of resources, awesome inspirations, 55 git commits, page beautifying illustrations and subtle animations. Finally, my website is presentable. Well, this is just the beginning. In the future, the goal is to achieve near perfection with the overall design and user experience.
tags: showdev, webdev, career, programming
cover_image: https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/k4nwiqxeelvvytff5hsq.png
---

With the little bit of smart work, countless design iterations, a handful of resources, awesome inspirations, 55 git commits, page beautifying illustrations and subtle animations. Finally, my website is presentable. Well, this is just the beginning. In the future, the goal is to achieve near perfection with the overall design and user experience.

Constructive feedback is welcomed and appreciated. Here's the link to view my website - [chinmay-joshi.com](http://chinmay-joshi.com)

Since the beginning, I used GitHub to host my codebase and website. You can check out the [code here](https://github.com/joshi-chinmay/joshi-chinmay.github.io). According to the Git history, the first commit was on September 6, 2017. That means it took me over 430 days to make it publishable.

![slow-snail](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/n2e2daxkjvme6mi72zjh.gif)

### There are three primary reasons I am writing a blog post -
1. Show off what I have done.
2. Get feedback from awesome developers like you.
3. Reach and connect with like-minded develolpers.

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# What I fancy about the website?
#### 1. Day and night mode -
The background colour changes according to the time you are visiting the website. If you visit after 7 in the evening, you can see the night mode, and it will be active until 7 in the morning. There's a button to toggle between the day and night mode.

![day-night-mode](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/1135wvlgxj5yxckedw8s.png)

#### 2. Round shaped transparent glass effect -
I created a semi-transparent layer of a glass looking element, with the hidden scrollbar. The visible scrollbar may have broken the overall fluidity and the UX.

![round-shape](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/mv9o8r4dc4wy95kszsv8.png)

#### 3. Auto-closing landing page -
When anyone opens the website, the first thing they see is a vertically floating animated gif with a welcome message. There's also a function to skip to the main website. You can find the typewriter styled effect [here](https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/typewriter-effect/).

![landing-page](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/a95xw68fpmg9akctzg58.png)

#### 4. Lowercase letters everywhere -
I don't know why I made that decision. I just wanted to be quirky in terms of the typography. I decided not to use any external font, because monospace was looking really good. When I started with the design I was using [Nunito](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Nunito).

![lowercase-letters](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/v1vqdp3zdbf44u6z31xd.png)

#### 5. Large fonts size -
Previously I used a comparatively small font size which reduced the readability. So I decided to have bold and large font sizes for everything. Because of that, the text is retaining more space. Throughout the page, I have added extra line height and letter spacing for cleaner looks.

![css-snippet](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/609izzsbglv30d5fwuz9.png)

#### 6. Click to view more information -
On the main page, you can see an icon `[+]`  which will help you to expand the associated section. When you toggle the `[+]` icon it becomes `[-]` and vice a versa. Once you expand the other tab, the previously opened tab will close automatically. The reason behind this idea is to save some space and avoid excessive page scroll.

![click-to-view-more](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/wksso5z52aaouau22zmx.png)

#### 7. Satisfactory lighthouse score -
There's still a lot to improve in terms of performance.
![lighthouse](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/pdlvzdpx5pm2ohfgqvr8.png)

---

# Technical and other resources -
1. HTML5
2. CSS3
3. JQuery
4. FontAwesome - All the icons are SVG images.
5. Landing page image is from Google Images.
6. Profile picture illustration - by a friend.

---

# So what's next?
1. Improve page animations. Sometimes page slows down while transitioning from landing page to the main page.
2. Remove JQuery. JQuery is a fantastic library, but I don't need it for a small website like this.
3. The transition between the day and night mode is not fluid. Add a small animation which should eliminate the rigid effect.
4. Replace the landing page's gif with better graphics (which should match with the profile avatar). Also, add a better favicon.
5. Add offline page with the help of Service Worker API.
6. HTTPS? Maybe...
7. Custom email address? Maybe...
8. Blog page, if I need one.
9. Bug fixes and enhancements suggested by others.
10. And many more things...

---

# Inspirations, credits and special thanks to -
#### 1. The Community -
The wonderful community of developers who inspired me to create my own website.
{% link https://dev.to/aspittel/building-a-kickass-portfolio-28ph %}
{% link https://dev.to/flexdinesh/i-re-wrote-my-portfolio-and-added-some-magic-22n7 %}
{% link https://dev.to/mokkapps/my-new-kickass-portfolio-website-2ife %}
Also, many more searches like [this](https://dev.to/search?q=portfolio) and [this](https://dev.to/search?q=websites).

#### 2. Dinesh Pandiyan - @flexdinesh, [website](https://flexdinesh.github.io/) -
I saw his website, and practically stole his idea of the raining background effect. It is so subtle and beautiful. Thank you, Dinesh.
![dinesh-commit-history](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/x0nfwyreqklezwfkqyfu.png)

#### 3. Ali Spittel - @aspittel -
I asked her multiple questions, at multiple times while designing the website. Her guidance and opinions have been beneficial. Thank you so much, Ali.

#### 4. Karishma Joshi - @karishmajoshi4 -
She's the genius behind the beautiful illustration you saw on my website.

My website could never have been possible without your support. Kudos!

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#### Which mode do you like the most... Day or Night?
![side-by-side](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/da9lmjk3cvl5sxysjcht.jpg)

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