Almost a year ago, I released my first portfolio. It was mainly a way to practice coding and gain that experience. The portfolio itself, however, lacked real content. Working at international company means much of our work is protected under NDA (till implementation), which limits what I can share publicly. I knew it was something I'd have to revisit when creating my next portfolio.
Looking back on my public activities, you'd probably notice I've been quiet for quite some time. There's almost no visible trace of what I've been doing in the recent years. When it comes to sharing my work, I tend to avoid platforms like Behance, Dribbble ...etc, they feel oversaturated, and it's difficult for anyone to standout, or even be noticed by the algorithm. That made me question: why contribute to platforms where the return is so unpredictable? And if you're someone multidisciplinary, designing, coding, and writing, you'd end up needing multiple platforms just to represent different aspects of your work, and no one would ever see the full-picture of you.
With all that in mind, I was left with only one option: creating my own journal space to share my thoughts, ideas, and projects — or literally anything else I find worth documenting. This decision became clearer after checking nerdy.dev and brianlovin.com. My website is still far from theirs, and if you're wondering why: it's because their sites are full of content. That's what makes them feel complete, something we'll touch on later. Building your own space gives a fuller picture of who you are, not just a glimpse like any other platform. It offers context, depth and a sense of the person behind the work.
Adam Argyle Website
Brian Lovin Website
To be honest, I was never much of a writer nor fan of it, at least not until I started documenting my Second Brain in Obsidian. That's when the benefits began to reveal themselves, and I realized what I've been missing. I'm an overthinking person, and writing is the prime healing medicine for overthinking. It helps to process the thoughts and quite the noise in the head. Before, most of my ideas were lost in the void, keeping me awake at night for no reasons.
If you haven't noticed yet, you're reading this article on my journal website. While that might look cool at first, I see it differently — to me, it's just full of small bugs and unfinished details waiting to be fixed. For the record, I believe any personal project should never truly have an end, as long as it remains part of the daily priorities. So why delay sharing my journals while waiting for it to be "perfect"? That moment may never come.
I've attended Dust LeBlanc's (Creative Director at Locomotive) talk twice — first in New York and later in Amsterdam. In his talk, he shared their experience of rebranding Locomotive, a process that took around 760 days. Just a day before the new branding launch, Dust said, "If I only had one more week." Hearing this again resonated deeply with me because I was in the middle of building my journal website. It felt familiar — that endless pursuit of perfection — except in my case, there was no deadline and no one waiting for another website. Soon after that talk, I created a list of tasks, prioritized them, and set a deadline. When the deadline came, many things were still missing, but the site was functional, so I hit publish.
Dust @ Awwwards New York — Oct 2024
Dust @ 27b Amsterdam — Nov 2025
You might ask, "What are your expectations?" Honestly, I have none. I rarely visit someone's portfolio just to read unless I'm planning to collaborate or work with them — how could I expect others to do the same? This space is simply dedicated to my own journey. It's a place for me to look back and see what I've done, who I am, and where I'm heading. Over the years, I've worked on so many different projects that I can hardly remember them all. By documenting them here, I can revisit and reflect every time I update or browse my journal, instead of leaving everything buried in some external storage I never open.