I had fun this weekend. Usually I hop to a coffeeshop early in the morning and strategize how I should spend the next week’s time. I spend 20–30 hours a week on Yellowscale-related work: editing photos, writing on Fstoppers, shooting vlogs, journaling, SEO things…

My full-time job is as a software consultant and instructor. But like many crafts, you rarely have time to invest in your personal assets like you do into client work; when that time does come, it’s rarely a strategic goal. “A contractor’s house is never finished.”

So I had a fun weekend — it finally became a strategic goal to hand-code Yellowscale.com from scratch. In case web geekery intrigues you:

• It uses some “new” CSS toys: CSS Grid, Variables, position:sticky and Flexbox. Well, I guess Flexbox isn’t really new, but you’d be surprised how many agencies still use float hacks. 😱
• It’s wicked fast thanks to all the usual web performance tricks, plus some newer ones like preload and preconnect! 🏎
• It passed some accessibility audits — yay ARIA and Lighthouse! 💡

Previously, I heavily monkey-patched a template from HTML5 UP. It served me well, but it feels so nice to code from scratch!

And there are a few new photos too! Have a peek. 👇
www.yellowscale.com

Source code is up on Github. If tech stuff interests you, head to jonathanleemartin.com!