Personal website · V2 launched

johnapaz.com

A more useful home for my writing, professional work, projects, and curiosity.

01 / The why

The problem worth solving

My earlier portfolio did its job, but it needed to become more than a résumé destination. I wanted visitors to be able to explore what I write, build, teach, and care about without guessing where to start.

02 / In the product

A look inside

Actual John A. Paz V2 homepage screenshot with introduction, colorful navigation tiles and featured work. — The V2 homepage at launch — original browser screenshot, sourced from the site launch article.

Mobile viewport capture of an earlier John A. Paz V2 homepage prototype. — An earlier V2 mobile prototype capture — shown as design history, not the current production state.

03 / Functionality

What the experience does

Six clear homepage destinations for writing, work, projects, guides, talks, and an introduction.
Search across site content, plus professional work and résumé resources.
An article-first reading experience and multiple appearance options.

04 / Direction

Decisions I made — and why

A personality before a template

I kept “Curious, Creative, Clever” and “Writer | Speaker | Human” at the center, rather than treating the site as a generic job-search portfolio.

Navigation built around visitors' questions

The homepage offers six prominent starting points, while compact résumé and portfolio controls serve people who arrive for professional samples.

A warmer editorial visual language

I chose a canyon-inspired palette, expressive type and restrained hover treatment, then revised details for mobile and keyboard use.

Keep the published content intact

The redesign evolved from an existing Jekyll site with separate staging and production branches, reducing the risk of losing older articles and resources.

05 / The process

Building alongside AI

I defined the voice, priorities, reference directions, and interaction decisions. AI assisted with templates, CSS, scripts, debugging and documentation.

The process was iterative: compare a proposed implementation to the design intent, inspect real output, note problems, and ask for targeted revisions.

GitHub pull requests and staging provided a way to review changes before promotion. AI-generated code was implementation support, not a substitute for my product judgment.

06 / Where it stands

What came of it

V2 is live and continues to evolve. Search, work samples and writing are easier to discover; refinement and device testing remain ongoing.