I started programming the new version of my site about a month ago. The first version was just a backup that was made with some basic designing knowledge in case this one would fail.

Design

I like simplicity. In all areas of life (music, photography, interior, programming, design, ...) I’m striving to make everything I do as simple, clean, and elegant as possible. That’s why I went with such a minimal design for the site.

I haven’t used any graphics in the layout for a few reasons. First, I’m not very good at making them. Second, I want the site to load quickly, even on phones, and scale gracefully for accessibility. Third, I wanted the interface to be as uncluttered as possible so the content of the site would be front and center.

One last thing I tried to keep in mind was sticking to a baseline rhythm for some elements of the site. The home page, blog entry list, and project list all line up with the links in the right sidebar. I think it gives the layout a more stable feel.

Implementation

This website was written in Python using the Django framework. Django makes it really easy to write useful web apps quickly and cleanly. I love it.

Blueprint and aardvark.legs kept me sane while writing the CSS. Grid layouts or typography are no longer a nightmare!

I rely pretty heavily on Markdown throughout the site. The blog entries and static pages are all written in Markdown and parsed to XHTML later. This might not be the fastest way to do things but processor time is cheap and my time isn’t.

The site is hosted on a VPS by Netcup. If you’re looking for a VPS based in Germany you should definitely consider them. Not only do they have good services and support, they’re absurdly cheap. I’d recommend them to anyone.