Every few years I get the itch to rebuild my personal site. Not because it’s broken. Not because I desperately need a new place to shove photos of rocks, side projects, or borderline-chaotic prototypes.
I rebuild it because I want a place that feels like me — a space where I can dump whatever’s rattling around in my brain without having to remember arcane YAML structures from three designs ago.
Enter: Frontal Nerdity, take… I don't even know anymore.
And this time, I built it on Statamic.
Why Statamic? Because I Like My Sanity
I’ve used my fair share of static generators and DIY setups over the years. They’re fun until they’re not — specifically when you open a repo six months later and can’t remember why you nested a directory inside a directory inside a directory, or why you decided to hand-roll a Markdown parser “for control.”
Statamic, on the other hand, is pure comfort:
I can make a few blueprints and never again question my own memory about what fields a blog post should have.
I get to create content like a normal human, not like someone performing YAML archaeology.
The CMS is flexible in all the ways I actually need — collections, taxonomies, layouts — and none of the ways that make my life harder.
And it’s all sitting on top of Laravel, which quietly ensures the thing doesn’t set itself on fire.
In short: Statamic makes it incredibly easy to set myself up for success, especially if I want to update this site semi-frequently without re-learning my own system every time.
The Stack: Simple, Sensible, and Almost Boring (in a Good Way)
I didn’t try to get cute with the tech this time. The whole point was to remove friction, not showcase that I know how to over-engineer a blog.
So the stack is intentionally straightforward:
Statamic as the CMS
DigitalOcean for hosting
Tailwind sprinkled where needed
Some light templating, nothing that’ll get me canceled by the web priesthood
A handful of Blade views that do exactly what they’re supposed to
Zero build steps that require me to remember how I installed them
If a tool wasn’t directly helping me “make things not suck,” it didn’t make the cut.
Design Decisions: Minimal, Intentional, and a Little Opinionated
I wanted a layout that could handle anything — blog entries, project showcases, random thoughts, design experiments, long rants about tech, you name it. So I built for flexibility:
Clean typography
Readable, nicely spaced, with enough personality that it doesn’t feel like a generic template.
Big and bold thumbnails
Project previews should feel like doorways, not afterthoughts.
A layout that doesn’t fight me
If I want to drop a giant image? Cool.
If I want a wall of text? Also cool.
If I want to embed something weird? Frontal Nerdity won’t complain.
What Went Smoothly (and What Absolutely Didn’t)
Smooth:
Statamic blueprints. Good lord. These things saved me hours of future pain. I can create a new blog post without thinking. Fields make sense. Content is structured. Life is good.
Less smooth:
Me deciding I needed to “improve the block spacing system” at 1am, only to break everything and then spend an hour undoing my own cleverness.
Weird decision I stand by:
Creating a layout that’s intentionally slightly overbuilt so future-me doesn’t have to redesign it every time inspiration hits. Past-me and future-me rarely agree, but they’re on the same page here.
Future Enhancements (aka Stuff I’ll Get To Eventually, Probably)
Dark mode, because I am weak
A JSON feed
Better search
More consistent image handling
Maybe a way to highlight long-running projects vs. quick drops
Definitely some custom fieldsets to make posting even easier (“dump mode” is the dream)
Like any personal site, it’s never finished. It just keeps evolving whether I want it to or not.
Wrapping Up
Frontal Nerdity is my digital junk drawer, but in the best possible way. It’s where I experiment, document, archive, rant, and occasionally make something genuinely useful.
Statamic lets me do all of that without tripping over my own workflow — which is the whole point. It makes the site easy to update, easy to extend, and easy to maintain without turning it into another job.
Work hard.
Lift others.
Make things not suck.
That’s the mission — even for a personal website.