Bringing Back the v1 Design

Yes, I redesigned my site again.

If you read my last refactoring post, you knew this would happen sooner or later. 😅

This time the reason was different. It wasn’t a new framework I wanted to try. It was feedback. After a few redesigns (“warm blue”, “go local”…), I got some honest feedback: the newer design was something only I really liked. Most people preferred the old v1 design, with its terminal-style header, monospace font and quiet layout that just lets you read.

So for v3.2, “v1 soul”, I went back to it. Not a copy-paste of the old site, but the same spirit with everything I’ve learned since.

What Came Back

The skiddle@web ~ terminal header with the blinking cursor
Monospace everywhere, dark by default (light mode and accent colours are still in the sidebar)
A simple, writing-first layout

What’s New

The site is now a portfolio too, not only a blog:

Home shows what I’m working on now, selected work and the latest writing
About has a little neofetch-style card and a short timeline
Works is my CV, and you can print it or save it as a PDF straight from the page
Projects, Uses and Services got the same treatment

There are also two blog features I’ve wanted for a long time:

Comments from Bluesky. When I share a post on Bluesky, the replies show up under the post. There are no accounts and no tracking, just the conversation where it already happens.
Older / newer post links at the end of every post, so it’s easier to keep reading.

A Bit More Professional

Redesigning also made me look at what I was sharing. I removed some personal details that didn’t need to be on the internet, and cleaned up a few pages so they say what I actually do.

The CV now shows how I work today: through Skiddle Labs Pte. Ltd., my own company. It looks after my personal projects and the clients who have been with me for years. My current protocol engineering contract, which I do with my team, runs through it too.

Under the Hood

Upgraded to Astro 7, which also took care of a bunch of security alerts
Moved my Last.fm API key out of the repo (oops) and into a Cloudflare secret
Every merge now deploys automatically with Cloudflare Workers Builds. Publishing a post is just: write it, open a pull request, merge. This post is the first one published that way!
The footer shows the release version, so you can always see which version you’re looking at. Right now it’s v3.2.

Thank You

The site still owes a lot to Hayden, whose code I started from in 2025, and to ideas from hailey.at and tania.dev.

And thanks to everyone who told me honestly that they missed the old design. You were right. 🙏

If you have thoughts on the new (old) look, let me know on Bluesky. 🚀