Why I built a lived-in website and you should too

When started designing websites, I loved impressive, stunning sites. The kind that you scroll through with your full attention, that feel immersive and leave you inspired. I wanted to make those kinds of websites. And I still love them, they have their purpose and their place.

So, of course, I wanted my website be the same. To be cool, captivating and make a good impression. And it did, I guess (I can't be the judge of that), but it lacked the most important thing of all: it lacked me, it lacked aliveness, human-ness, it didn't feel lived-in.

And the thing is, a website can be very stunning, but if no one lives in it, if it's empty, after the first time you've scrolled though it, as impressed as you could be, what makes you want to visit it again? Nothing really. Sure you might bookmark it as inspiration and maybe one day revisit it. But you won't really have a reason to come back.

So that's why I remade my website into a space I actually live in. Seriously, I might be the person who most visits it. And I work on it almost every week, I update texts, improve things, publish posts. But updating and keeping a blog it isn't the only thing that makes it lived-in. It's structured and set up so that it can change with me: It follows a bottom-up approach; it has custom, hand-drawn illustrations; it doesn't hide the "unprofessional" or "hobby" parts of me, what makes me human; I prioritize things being done, not perfect, and things being shared first and improved later (or never, if they don't need to be); it's not a brochure of one-and-done pages, but a living, evergrowing space.

So I recommend that if you have a website, but don't feel great about it, or if you're thinking about making one: think about your goals with it. Do you just want to make a good impression, or do you want a place that people come back to? A space that feels more like you?