I updated the blog design

I updated my blog. I was using DaisyUI before, I had chosen it because it was what I used in a project at my previous company, and it's fine, it's good.

I chose those muted blues thinking about accessibility: I wanted it to be friendly for people who don't perceive colors like the majority. I looked up information about color blindness, which is why I went for soft tones, watching out for contrast and shapes. In the end, the design didn't quite convince me and I wanted to try something else, but I stopped iterating on it at the time.

To redesign I tried AI tools. First Stitch, but when I clicked on a project I had been working on it would freeze (Sep 2026) and then show an error with a face like the one when YouTube dies, it didn't seem like a browser overload error. It seemed broken inside. I took it as a sign that Google might end up killing Stitch.

I looked for alternatives and ended up on Open Design, and honestly I'm very excited: unlike Stitch, I can touch the code directly, whether in VS Code or in its built-in editor. It's not just for websites or mobile apps, it also generates design systems, slides and several other things. I feel like it lets me step outside the box of standards without locking me in, and for now I'll stick with it.

I took the opportunity to change several things. Green is one of my favorite colors, a Rolex green, so the accents are now green and the blog already has more of my essence. I haven't checked if it passes AA contrast yet, I'll adjust it later.

The tags are more colorful and the only new thing in navigation is that you can now navigate to /tags after clicking on a tag. The off-topic chat is still the same, with a free name. I also adjusted the layout: the content and chat width tries to respect the Golden Ratio (~1.618) so reading is more pleasant to the eye and yes, it looks much better.

Another detail is the language selector. Before it didn't show the active language button; now it shows all three flags and makes it clear which one is selected. It's cleaner to choose between Spanish 🇲🇽, English 🇬🇧 and French 🇫🇷.

The light and dark versions are still there, in case you want to turn the lights on or off. In French, only translated posts appear; pending ones are not shown yet. Now I use conventional and AI translators, but I want to learn French.

Overall, it looks much better. It reminds me of a "default", I suppose AI averages what's most discussed on the internet about how to make this kind of blog, and there's my self-criticism: it's a bit stuck to the corporate style, it needs a more geek touch, a sticker here and there. Still, I like it, I'm happy with the result.

In the end, this blog will be the showcase of my mantras and my ways of thinking; even if it's not always that organized, this design is the ideal I'd like to aspire to.

Before and after

Instead of hosting the images myself, I leave them on Internet Archive so they stand as a record as time passes, whether it feels alive or dead depending on what remains. Here's the before and after: