This site gets its taste slowly, on purpose — one considered change at a time, each one a real commit you can read. This is why I made them.
If the lamp is going to sit on my name, it should behave like a lamp. You can grab the shade and aim it now — the head turns on its pivot and the beam goes where you point it. There’s a ball-chain to pull instead of clicking, with a click you can hear. And if you toggle it like a maniac, the bulb burns out; you’ll have to click it to screw in a new one. Objects earn belief through consequences.
I killed the intro I had — color panels sweeping across the screen, the kind of opener every showreel uses. Now the page starts dark, the lamp flickers on, and the light itself reveals the site, because that’s what light would do. Same day, I fixed the metaphor’s polarity: dark mode means it’s night and the lamp is on. And first visits now default to the time at my desk in Seattle — you’re not toggling a theme, you’re visiting my room.
The lamp’s base now rests exactly on the cap-tops of CHAMP, in font-relative units, so it sits correctly on every screen and every fallback font. Nobody will consciously notice. That’s the point.
A theme toggle is a checkbox wearing a costume. I drew an anglepoise lamp instead — arm, springs, joints, a bulb seated inside the shade — and made it the switch. It flickers before it settles, the way real filaments do. This was the first thing on the site that felt like mine.
I retired a 3D portfolio you had to fly through. It was impressive the way a lobby fountain is impressive. In its place: one column of honest HTML, three typefaces, no framework, no build step. A foundation quiet enough that every future addition has to justify itself.