How to build a website in 2021

11 Feb 2020, updated 19 Jul 2021 by Sia Karamalegos

It's really easy.

Step 1: Buy a domain. You might have a problem if you already have 20 domains waiting to be used, but that's okay. Feel free to buy more domains. You never know when you might need that perfect domain name. P.S. Vercel has a great domain search tool with hacks. Now I've just enabled your habit. You're welcome.

Step 2a: Engage in Twitter debates about how JavaScript is ruining the web and which static site generators are best. Do this for 4 months.

Step 3: Take an entire course to get better at design. Spend 5 hours generating an HSLa exploration CodePen to visualize something that already exists. Bemoan color systems and values. Read a shout-out tweet about best conference talks that happen to be about React and color. Find a tool that does it way better than you.

Step 2b: Eventually some rando will tell you about Eleventy, and you're like "sounds brilliant". Repeat step 2a.

Step 4: Clone that starter repo and fire it up. Waste 17 hours trying to figure out how to implement some esoteric design feature no one will notice. "Fuck, it's midnight on a Friday, why am I still doing this?" On Monday, "add a circle".

Step 5: Let's do dark mode.

Step 6: (Six hours later) Let's not do dark mode.

Step 7: Look at other people's sites in envy.

Step 8: Write the actual content.

Step 9: Join the Learn with Jason livestream on variable fonts. "Oh that's cool, must add."

Step 10: Edit the color scheme 20 more times. Play with the design and variable fonts. Open Firefox because the font dev tools are 🔥. Go blind because Firefox oversaturated the colors. Recover from blindness, and edit the colors again.

Step 11: Sees how CSS Tricks implemented dark mode and admire how well they did it. Silently close the tab.

Step 12: Launch! Ugh, non-responsive iframes and bad break points. Run Axe. Feel like a terrible person. Fix issues (and edit colors again).

Step 13: 5 months later, write a blog post.

Note to self: next time, just hire a designer.

Blog gallery photo by Henrikke Due on Unsplash

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