A bolder, personalized website design

How I redesigned calvinf.com for the second time in 2026 with a clearer homepage, stronger typography, and a more useful path through seventeen years of posts.

Published

I've redesigned calvinf.com. Again. (Hey, this website has been here a long time.) Earlier this year I migrated seventeen years of posts from WordPress to Ruby on Rails. That update focused on the technology stack. This redesign focuses on delivering a bolder, personalized look & feel.

I wanted a new visitor to know within a few seconds that I'm a Principal Engineer who builds websites and uses AI-native engineering practices. I wanted the site to remain a blog but highlight additional info about me beyond just the posts.

The Topics pages, for example, help with highlighting the content. The topics were organized and generated from a fresh review of the themes and content of my historical posts.

AI usage for the redesign

In this case as with the last migration, I leveraged AI to plan and implement the new version of the website. Given the current behavior of the Claude Opus 5 models with wordiness and slop grenades, I instead chose to build with OpenAI's ChatGPT desktop app and the GPT-5.6 Sol model.

Of particular use in this project was the Grill Me skill by Matt Pocock. It's a great way to kick off a long Q&A session to refine the details of a plan before diving into the implementation.

A necessary component on this project was taste. AI doesn't have taste, and it doesn't create - that's something humans must continue to do even as AI-assisted planning and engineering becomes more prevelant. I provided the necessary oversight, perspective, and guidance to go from an idea (I want to refresh my website) to a plan (Here's how we will refresh the website) to the code (Here's the new website) to a final version (Here is the polished version for launch).

The new homepage

The redesigned calvinf.com homepage at an iPhone 15 viewport in dark mode

The homepage now starts with a simple introduction followed by recommended reading and recent posts.

A visual system for reading

The new design uses three self-hosted typefaces with different responsibilities:

  • Space Grotesk for display type and headings.
  • Source Sans 3 for readable body copy.
  • IBM Plex Mono for dates, labels, topics, and other publication details.

Orange marks active states, links, rules, and small references.

The site continues to support a dark theme I added earlier this year with the theme toggle included in the site navigation.

More than a résumé on the About page

The redesigned About page's places section at an iPhone 15 viewport in dark mode

The refreshed About page explains my current work and experience.

The page now includes a few photographs from places I've been fortunate to visit while doing work that serves global audiences.

Wrapped

I'm glad to get the new website look & feel out to anyone who happens upon my site, and I hope it makes it easier to see at a glance what I do.

Take a look around, browse the blog, or get in touch.