The first version of rakkiruu.dev was also the first portfolio I had ever built by myself.

It started as a Figma design, turned into a Vue website, and eventually lived on my own domain. Getting it online already felt like a win. It proved I could take something from an empty canvas and make it into a real place people could visit.

I’m still proud of that.

But every time I went back to it, something felt off. The site showed my name, skills, and projects, yet it never really felt like mine.

The old portfolio worked, but it's.. eh?

#What felt missing?

It wasn’t one broken component or a bad color choice. The real issue was the lack of a clear identity.

Most sections were there simply because portfolio websites are “supposed” to have them. There was a landing page, an About section, a list of skills, and a few navigation tabs—but they never quite came together into something that felt meaningful.

Even the technical side had grown without much direction: Vue, Vercel, a custom domain, and a bunch of config decisions I could barely remember making.

That’s pretty normal for a first portfolio. I was still figuring out how I liked to design, write, and present my work.

At some point, patching the old version just stopped making sense. Especially the code is heavily messy. I wanted to start over from a blank page.

#Starting from the profile

The new design takes a bit of inspiration from the approachable structure of Ko-fi and quiet minimalism, but the goal was never to copy either of them.

Instead of opening with a big dramatic landing page, the site starts like a profile.

You immediately see who I am, what I’m currently doing, where to find me, and even what I’ve been listening to lately. Everything else just continues from that introduction.

The standard theme uses dark neutral surfaces, soft blue interactions, and a warmer accent mainly for writing. It’s intentionally calmer than some of my earlier concepts. The personality now comes from the composition, the small details, and the content itself—not from filling every empty space with decoration.

#Four small doors

The navigation is now split into four focused places:

• About is the starting point: a short introduction, my current Spotify activity, and the tools in my workbench.
• Projects separates the things I built myself from the work I contributed to.
• Blog gives longer thoughts and development notes a place to live.
• Guestbook lets visitors leave something behind without needing an account or an email.

#A portfolio that can grow

This rebuild also changes how the website works behind the scenes.

The new version uses SvelteKit instead of Vue. Supabase stores projects, articles, and guestbook entries, while server routes handle private operations and the Spotify integration.

In one small summary:

const rakkiruuDev = {  framework: 'SvelteKit',  content: 'Supabase',  presence: 'Spotify Web API',  theme: 'standard'} as const;

There’s also a private dashboard where I can write articles, upload images between paragraphs, publish projects, and moderate guestbook entries. Adding something new no longer means opening the source code and redeploying the entire site.

The technical migration matters, but collecting more technologies was never the point. What matters is that the site can now grow and change alongside me.

#Not a finished identity

This version is called V2, but that doesn’t make it final.

The banner is temporary. The project archive will grow. My writing style will probably shift after a few posts, and there will almost certainly be details I decide to rebuild again later.

That uncertainty is part of the website now.

The first portfolio tried to present a finished version of me. This one is more honest: I’m still a student, still building games, still learning design, and still making small web things simply because an idea bothered me enough to create it.