In May this site launched, solid but visually rather generic. Two months later, here is the relaunch: same content, same foundation, completely new clothes.
Why a redesign at all?
The first version did its job: the site was online, bilingual, fast. But it looked interchangeable, and for a site whose only purpose is to leave a personal impression, that is a real problem. So I rethought the design from scratch, first as a concept with several variants, then as an implementation.
What is new
- A warm colour world of beige and amber tones instead of neutral white and grey. The site now feels more like a living room than a government office.
- Dark mode with a toggle in the navigation. Without an explicit choice the system setting applies, and the decision is stored locally in the browser, no cookie involved.
- Cards instead of text walls: focus areas, projects and certificates live in clearly separated cards, and the career path is a timeline, horizontal on desktop, vertical on mobile.
- Mobile first, for real: the timeline, the stage photo and the badges are built specifically for narrow screens rather than merely squeezed down.
The invisible rebuilds
A relaunch is a good moment to clear technical debt. Along the way:
- Social media preview images as PNG: the previous SVG preview could not be rendered by LinkedIn and friends. There is now a 1200×630 PNG, plus a proper Apple touch icon.
- Sitemap and leftovers cleaned up: preview pages left over from the redesign phase are gone, and the sitemap only contains real content.
- Fixed blog rules: title and description lengths, structure, internal linking and style are now documented, and the existing posts were brought up to that standard. Good for search engines, but above all good for consistency.
The foundation stays the same: Astro 5, Tailwind CSS 4, statically generated, hosted on all-inkl in Germany, with no tracking and no cookie banner. The details are in the launch post.
A word on the workflow
As with datly.eu and foldly.eu, this rebuild happened in the evenings with AI support: concept and decisions by me, a lot of the legwork by the tool, every change checked in the browser. That division of labour has become my standard for side projects, and it is the reason a complete relaunch fits alongside a full-time job.
Have a look around, the best starting point is the about page. If you spot anything broken or off: let me know.
