Hank Hayes

Student, Programmer, Entrepreneur

hankhayes.com

link to project

Technologies

HTML, CSS, Javascript

Completed

2023

First attempt

Having recently taken a Web Application Development class, I wanted to create the website using the ASP.NET framework that I had just learned. I created a basic prototype and tried hosting on Azure as a Static Web App but hit numerous road blocks. The way that my solution was architected was not in line with what Azure was expecting from a Static Web App, but that didn't stop from spending days trying to adapt and make it work. I eventually took a step back and realized I was completely over-engineering what should be a simple website made up of a few html pages.

Working prototype

I was finally on the right track and began development. Up to this point, I was only familiar with the ASP.NET framework and Bootstrap, so I had to familiarize myself with some basic HTML and CSS. I was able to get a hang of both pretty quickly and had a working (albeit boring) prototype up and running. I took it a few steps further and created some custom animations for some text elements, which actually turned out pretty well! You can check out this iteration on my Github. I'm pretty proud of it, but it didn't really live up to the aesthetic standard that I was hoping for. Here is the landing page, which was my favorite part about iteration one, and something I'm actually pretty proud of.

Realization

I came across Jordan Singer and his personal website (which may look familiar) and really liked it. It was the perfect mix of sleek and to the point and I really wanted to capture that mix for my own site. I set out to build a replica of his site, which taught me even more about styling and website structure. I soon found out that I could simply borrow the code and use the same style sheet. I decided to work smarter, not harder.

Final product

I finally made the realization that his site was built with a publicly available style sheet. This was great because it saved me a ton of time and headache. I enjoyed the work I put into the first few iterations of the site and learned a ton about web development, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. If you're a student looking to standup your own personal website, check out this article I wrote on the topic!