The Great Jekyll Migration
So… Jekyll happened. After a few years on WordPress, I decided it was time to rebuild the site from scratch, and I wanted something faster, leaner, and – honestly – more fun to work with.
Instead of relying on a bunch of plugins and hoping they play nicely together, I went full-on custom modules. Why? Because I had specific ideas about how I wanted things to work, and sometimes the easiest path is just to build exactly what you need.
The Tech Stack
Here’s what powers the thing:
- Jekyll – Static site generation. It’s fast, it’s clean, and it doesn’t require a database having an existential crisis at 2 AM.
- Sass – Modular CSS that actually makes sense. No more hunting through thousands of lines looking for that one rule.
- Custom Jekyll modules – The secret sauce. Built to handle specific functionality without bloating the codebase.
- JavaScript – For the interactive bits that make things feel alive.
- Git – Version control and automated deployment. Change something, push, done.
What’s Under the Hood
The real fun part was writing custom Jekyll modules to achieve things exactly how I envisioned them. Instead of forcing the site into the mold of existing plugins, I had the freedom to structure content, process metadata, and handle rendering the way that made sense for a music/portfolio site.
The responsive design works across everything – phones, tablets, desktops. The static site generation means stupidly fast load times. And Sass keeps the styling maintainable without the usual CSS nightmare of repetition and specificity wars.
From 2016 to 2019
This wasn’t just a redesign – it was a complete architectural shift. Moving from WordPress meant losing some admin UI comfort, but gaining control and speed. The Jekyll setup runs on GitHub Pages, which is basically “set it and forget it” deployment.
Projects, portfolio entries, media assets – everything is organized in a way that makes sense both for the site structure and for my own workflow. Adding new work, updating old projects, tweaking designs – it’s all straightforward.
Why it Mattered
By mid-2019, I’d learned enough about what I wanted from a portfolio site to actually build it properly. The v2 wasn’t just “better WordPress” – it was a completely different philosophy: static sites done right, with just enough custom code to make it sing.
Plus, there’s something satisfying about having full control over your own site. Every line of code is yours. Every performance optimization is a choice you made. Every quirk is a feature.