2025 is the year. I graduate this year, the long-awaited Minecraft movie hits theaters this year, Grand Theft Auto 6 releases this year?? You know what else happens this year? My website finally goes live this year.

Back in 2021 when design first piqued my interest, I got heavily interested into user interface design. (UI for short!) It all began in my freshman year when I got the courage to ask a couple of students if I could design them an app for their pitch deck. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why I did that, but it kicked off something I'd never expect to see myself doing.

Later that year, I was already around the block, picking up design projects left and right and throwing everything I had at them. Gosh, I remember all of them so vividly — Aircamp, Dibon.in, Otter Bots, man the memories! Most if not all of these are unfortunately long gone now, but working with these small startups and community spaces really got me into the whole design scene.

So what does all of this mean? Well, I also began work on making my portfolio site, because every designer needs one — right? Well funnily enough, it's been about 4 years now and I still don't have one. What happened? I think along the way, I got too invested in making the perfect portfolio. A portfolio every designer dreams of, and soon enough, eventually dreads of.

The Portfolio Dilemma

So what does it mean to have a portfolio exactly? It simply just means a way of showcasing your work to clients, friends, family, co-workers, yada yada! Show-don't-tell is a common practice in the art community, but I've been doing exactly the opposite for so long. Rather showing off all the niche little designs I've handcrafted and spent hours on, I've hid them away in hopes of finally putting them on a random site for people to bother clicking through.

The craziest part is that nobody will even view it! Whether the site was too buggy, too jarring, distracting even, or just straight up inaccessible, people have such attention spans nowadays that it only takes a second to consider if the site's worth visiting anymore. But, why should I care? Why should you care?

I worried too much about creating this fallacy amongst myself, setting myself up for failure on this idea of a "perfect portfolio." I went through iteration through iteration, repository after repository, design over design, just to burn out all over again. I created my portfolio to be a means of all my digital media, or to mimic an actual desktop application, or even feel like a social media platform. It was a whirlwind of different concepts and ideas until I landed on this little link-in-bio named Bento.

Bento, otherwise known as bento.me, is a bio-in-link site that takes such a simple concept, powers it with a beautiful and super user friendly user interface, and lets you hit the road with it. You can drag and drop images and videos, links, anything to your heart's content, and that's what made it so fun. So awesome to work with. Why build all of these complicated components and objects when all you really need is one to power everything? A simple widget — of course!

I was really dead set on making Bento my official means of having a portfolio, where I would showcase glimpses of my work and my contact methods, and I did for awhile! Until, they were announced that they were being acquired by Linktree in 2023. Still breaks my heart to this day. So I did what everyone else inevitably did, and switch off in hopes of a better alternative.

But Bento's simplistic user interface stuck with me, something about it just felt so nice and sleek. I wanted my website to be just like it. I enjoyed how you could create a grid-like bento layout, throw some images in, and have it feel amazing already. I wanted that. Yet, design trends have definitely made the typical bento layout feel straight-up boring. Sure, they're fun, and I can't wait to make a whole bunch of my own soon, but man they feel as dated as the Linear-styled SaaS landing pages you see now. (And Linear's landing is sooo dope!)

So after a while, a lot of thinking, and just some time to think about stuff in my life, I got an idea.

The Canvas

Honestly? I'm not one to follow design trends. Now that may set me as a bad freelancer or designer, and I may honestly be missing out on some dope things, but I like to design things that are sorta unique — at least to me. I wanted to break the rules, get out of this norm of being pixel-perfect. It's all I've ever done, be pixel-perfect, make sure this is juuuust right, it angers me. So I did what I wouldn't have wanted to done in the past, and craft a page that felt like an entire whiteboard — a canvas if you will.

So what if it's a bit broken? Or if it's not super duper optimized? Maybe it feels too inaccessible? These are definitely pressuring pain points to look into! But for something so small that's taken over 4 years to accomplish, I think it's about time I launch something rather nothing. A website doesn't just publish and stay the same forever, they evolve. I want to finally get myself out and about, have a reason to drop my link somewhere, have someone visit one day and be amazed at what I can do.

So this is it. A somewhat broken, not-so-responsive, yet handcrafted personal site made with love. Things don't align to a perfect grid, everything feels off and it feels like child's play. But I like that, and I think that's what matters. Honestly, just the other day I found this person on Twitter (or X, if you'd like to call it that.) that had this website that felt like a 7th grader made it. But it felt so dynamic and amazing. The illustrations were done in pen in Figma, and they were animated! You scroll down and they played so vividly, and I loved the whole idea. I'm enjoying this new era of designers where we come in and break the rules, drop out of the norm of same ol' same ol, out with the old and in with the new!

My Final Thoughts

Design is subjective. You can like this or like that. Sure, there are limitations like development or accessibility — which are crucial to design. Yet, I believe you can always still have that fun charm in crafting something. Even if nobody cares, at least you, the designer, does. And if you're struggling to make your portfolio, then just make it already. Oof, just use a template at this point! Nobody's going to kill you over it, get your work out there! Don't be like me, whittling away for 4 years just to finally grow up. Oh, and by the way, I built this entirely with Framer. It's an advanced web builder tool made for designers, and it's honestly amazing.

Thanks for coming by and reading my first post by the way! Writing has been something I'm not good at, but I've always had in mind for awhile. I want to thank some of my friends like Sri Buddha, Muhsin Ataul, Emilia Petersen, and Jeremy Bosma for inspiring me every time I talked to them. For raising my spirits, getting me out of my comfort zone, and pushing me to do better. Hoping to continue this silly little journey. :)