Why a unique website matters (to me)

When I first put a site on the internet, I just wanted a place to link my projects. A plain list would’ve done the job. Over time I realized the site is more than a list—it’s part scrapbook, part workshop, part front door. The way it looks and behaves changes how people use it, and how I show up.

Ownership is the simple reason. A personal site is the one place online that doesn’t change the rules on you. No algorithm decides if your friends see your writing. If I want a weird page that only makes sense to me, it stays up. That freedom makes me more likely to actually build things.

Taste is the second reason. You can’t develop taste in a vacuum. Picking colors, type, spacing, and movement forces you to decide what you like and what you don’t. Even small choices—how a link hovers, how a code block renders—add up to a point of view. A template is a fine starting point, but pushing past it taught me more about design than any tutorial did.

There’s also memory. A unique site becomes a record of what I cared about at that moment. I can scroll back and see the old JavaScript experiments, the awkward layouts, the posts where I was figuring out how to think. It’s embarrassing in a good way. It reminds me to keep learning.

Practically, a site with a little personality changes the kinds of messages I get. When the site looks like me, people write with more context: “I read that Pittsburgh post,” or “I tried your logging trick.” That’s a much better starting point than a cold LinkedIn DM. Hiring, collaboration, speaking—it all gets easier when your work has a visible home.

Finally, it’s a playground. I don’t need permission to try a new build tool, swap a font, or prototype an interaction. The stakes are low and the feedback loop is fast. Half the tricks I use at work started as tiny experiments here.

So why “cool and unique”? Not to be loud. Just to be specific. Specific is memorable, and memorable is useful when you’re a human on the internet. If you’ve been meaning to make your site feel more like you, start small: change one thing you see on every page (type scale, spacing, link color), ship it, and live with it for a week. Repeat.

In a world of feeds, having a corner that’s yours—and looks like it—still matters.