How I Built My Portfolio

Published: 2025-10-01

Building my personal portfolio was both a design and engineering exercise — a chance to demonstrate my technical expertise while creating a platform that represents who I am as a full stack developer. In this post, I’ll walk you through how I built it using Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and deployed it on Vercel.

Planning and Goals

Before writing any code, I defined the purpose of my portfolio: to showcase my skills, projects, and technical blog in a clean, professional, and fast-loading interface. Performance, scalability, and SEO were top priorities.

Choosing the Stack

  • Next.js — for its hybrid rendering, excellent SEO, and smooth routing system.
  • TypeScript — to ensure type safety and maintainability across components.
  • Tailwind CSS — for fast, responsive UI design and consistent styling.
  • Vercel — for simple CI/CD, instant deployment, and edge optimization.

Design and Layout

I aimed for a minimalist design with clear typography, strong hierarchy, and plenty of white space. Each section — About, Projects, Blog, and Contact — was built as a standalone component for reusability. Tailwind’s utility-first approach helped me rapidly prototype and refine the design.

Core Features

  • Dynamic pages for projects and blog posts using file-based routing in Next.js.
  • Responsive layout optimized for all screen sizes.
  • Dark mode support using Tailwind’s dark: variants.
  • SEO-friendly meta tags and dynamic page titles via next/head.
  • Modular component structure for maintainability.

Deployment

Once the application was ready, I deployed it on Vercel — a seamless process that connected directly with my GitHub repository. Each commit triggers an automatic build and deployment, ensuring continuous integration.

Takeaways

This project reinforced my love for building clean, performant web experiences. It also reminded me that great design isn’t just about visuals — it’s about structure, accessibility, and usability. My portfolio now serves as a living representation of my skills and growth as a developer.

Tech Stack Summary

  • Frontend: Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS
  • Deployment: Vercel
  • Tools: Git, VS Code, Figma

You can view the full source code on GitHub, or visit the live site at antonymwandiki.vercel.app.