Earlier this year, I developed a beta version of my portfolio. Due to my limited budget, I decided to build a static website in order to further my coding skills.
This is the first website I ever made. It involved lots of research the first go-around, since I needed to learn what domains and hosting providers and content management systems were, then figure out how to set them up together. I put it on GitHub, because it was free, then booted up Hugo's static site generator on my command prompt, because that was free, too. Over nearly a year of trial and error, I was able to heavily customize my portfolio and write a few shortcodes and scripts of my own.
Here is an abridged list of some of the resources I used:
Here are the repositories for the portfolio, which is now hosted at lianeyue.github.io.
Hugo is wonderfully simple and easy to learn, but it is written in Apache and is not natively supported by a browser. This meant I could only make progress on a local machine that was connected to the Internet, and it was difficult to continue where I left off when I changed computers. Additionally, Hugo renders HTML through input files in Markdown, requiring many workarounds across multiple files in order to support the interactions I wanted for my site. In all, it was not a straightforward process and I spent most of my time resolving the errors I encountered.
The turning point happened when I was having coffee with a friend, airing out my frustrations over a section of Javascript that had stumped me for months. He looked at me funny and said, "Wait, don't we know a lot of software engineers? Couldn't they fix this in 10 minutes?"
He was right. Turning to a friend for advice and eventually, switching to tools that made more sense for my experience level, made a sizable difference in the outcome of my portfolio. The current site here at lianeyue.com is built on Wordpress with visuals made in Adobe Illustrator, and it took drastically less time. The original might be a failure, but I do regard it with some satisfaction for having attempted an initiative I knew nothing about with such gusto.
Portfolio
News InfographicsCommunication Design, Data Visualization
strtchmrks MagazineGraphic Design, UI/UX, Web Development
Hotel Metropole ReservationsApplication Development, Information Systems
Digital Grid ServicesUI/UX Design and Research
Timelapse Camera PrototypeArduino, Laser Cutting, Fabrication
Product Selection ResearchData Modeling, Research
Portfolio WebsiteWeb Development, HTML/CSS, Javascript
Art GalleryFine Art and Digital Illustration
Consulting WorkBusiness and Technology Experience