Devlog: Building My Portfolio with Next.js 15

Design Philosophy

For my portfolio, I wanted three things:

1. Dark UI — easier on the eyes, modern feel
2. Minimalistic — content-first, no clutter
3. Fast — instantaneous page loads

Tech Stack Decisions

• Next.js 15 with App Router for server components and routing
• Tailwind CSS for rapid, consistent styling
• TypeScript for type safety
• Lucide icons for clean, consistent iconography

Color Palette

I built the design system around purple accents on a near-black background:

• Background: #0a0a0a
• Card: #111111
• Accent: #6d28d9 (violet-700)
• Text: #ededed

Key Features

The site includes animated page transitions, a responsive mobile navigation, and project detail pages with rich content. Everything is statically generated for maximum performance.

Deployment

Deployed on Vercel with automatic preview deployments for every PR. The site scores 100/100 on Lighthouse across all metrics.