Of course, this website isn't 100% original. I found many wonderful websites and talented designers, and took little bits here and there to craft my image for this website. I hope this blog post can explain a bit of the history behind the design choices I made when making this website.

anhvn

anhvn's website (who's url I can't type properly no matter how many times I try) is a charming little site. Just like my website, it underwent an (albeit mainly graphical) redesign a little bit after I had absorbed inspiration from it's old design. Sadly, it looks like the website isn't open source and I archive.org doesn't have an older version of it available, and I'm too shy to reach out to them directly. I wish I could show the old dark design here 😓.

Update

After writing a small scraper specifically for Anh's website and downloading a copy, I managed to find several urls that still used the old design. I've updated the image to show one of those pages. They are as follows:

• https://anhvn.com/archive
• https://anhvn.com/weeknotes
• https://anhvn.com/photos
• https://anhvn.com/notes

Points of interest

When I originally found the site, I was in awe at how minimalist yet... enchanting it was. I don't really have words to describe it, but it hit a specific niche in minimal and beautiful design that I really loved. It definitely inspired the blog layout, and helped immensly with the decision to use rem values a lot, and the color system setup I created, influenced the shift in the tinting of the palette I brought over from v2, with the background getting a blue-ish hue to it. It also pushed the minimalistic page design. Thank you anh for this charming and adorable website of yours!

Chase McCoy

Chase's website is also amazing. Again, going for the minimalist vibe, he sprinkles in many different designs for different pages, yet they somehow manage to fit together well. Only now that I'm writing this do I notice the top container background changing colors.

Points of interest

I really liked the little details and the blog listing. Eventually, I did take quite the inspiration from the blog listing, and the subtitles.

Josh W Comeau

Now this is a website you've probably seen before if you've looked into blogging. Josh's website is a dedicated blog, instead of a combo website like the others. It's extremely polished and accessible, and has a lot of interesting content on it.

Points of interest

For sure, the biggest thing I took from Josh's website blog is the use of MDX and components specific for individual posts. He manages to integrate it flawlessly with his posts.

Other awesome websites

I've also been gathering a list of some really neat websites I've found and liked.

• https://www.perimeterwatch.com
• https://quill.chat
• https://www.bf.wtf
• https://durimel.io
• https://lisilinhart.info
• https://hyper.co
• https://blobity.dev (alright, so it's a library. It's still a really cool one!)
• https://14islands.com
• https://kazukinoda.com
• https://ped.ro
• https://leerob.io
• https://designdetails.fm
• https://brianlovin.com
• https://spectrum.chat/explore
• https://linear.app
• https://www.changelogs.gallery (It's a list, but a good list)

There's always the tug of war in me between the minimalist and the crazed detail-loving gremlin, and many websites swung the choices I made when making the design for v3. From an awwwards-worthy site to a plain blog, I couldn't decide what would be worth my time to make. The design took a few days to perfect and tweak to my liking, but I haven't pulled everything from originality.

Please consider checking some of them out.

Cheers, Basil