jamesbateson.co.uk

After a few weeks of hating everything I did, I have finally put my new site live, welcome.

It has been a few years now since I have had a personal site, since starting my job at Fat Media, so over five years to be precise.

In all honesty, I'm still not too sure about the design, but I think that is always the case with your own work. I like sites that use bold, different gradients, so I was to include something like that. There are elements that I will certainly tweak over time, however, I wanted to get something live ASAP for a few reasons:

Haven't decided if it's bold or horredous yet!

Start Writing

The primary reason I wanted to build my personal site, was to start writing more. Whether this is something tech-related - something new that I have learned and want to document for my future reference, or even help somebody else out. It could also be something about my walking/running or personal life.

Online Presence

I am trying to become a little more active online in terms of my contributions to tech. I have started making more Codepen examples etc. Having a personal site gives me something to link to.

New Techniques/Demos

I love my job and the work we do, however sometimes the nature of client work means that I don't get to use the latest technology, or try out something I've been learning about recently. The idea is that this site is the place I will try these new things. There will be a 'Demos' page coming soon, where I intend to put some cool examples, so watch this space!

Side Projects

I have built this site using Eleventy (an awesome SSG). I plan to use this for a couple of other side projects I have in mind, so wanted some more experience using it before I started them. I used Hylia as a base template, this is created by the brilliant Andy Bell, and well worth considering.

The site is hosted on Netlify, which is one of the best tools I have ever used, I'm also writing this post in the Netlify CMS. This is something I wanted to try out, again for future projects, but also to make it easier for me to update the site, and keep the content fresh.

So, all in all, I'm very excited about the future of this and please to have got it live. I've got some cool things planned for it and will write about those when they are ready. In the meantime, if you have any feedback on this site it would be great to hear.

Jim