Developer Portfolio — React + Tailwind

Most developer portfolios look the same: a hero section, a grid of cards, a contact form. I wanted mine to feel like a product in itself — something that reflects how I think about systems, design, and performance.

I designed and built umarjimoh.com from scratch in one week, from concept to deployment.

The goal was an architectural layout driven by clean lines, clever micro-interactions, and a sophisticated premium dark aesthetic.

Color palette: A bespoke dark theme built on a deep obsidian canvas with subtly elevated neutral surfaces. Crisp, high-contrast typography ensures readability, while a single electric lime accent is used sparingly to draw attention to interactive elements, active states, and key focal points.

Typography: A three-font system pairing Geist for UI and body text, Newsreader for bold editorial headlines, and Geist Mono for technical metadata. Strong typographic hierarchy is achieved through oversized display headings, balanced whitespace, and subdued secondary text — creating a premium, developer-centric reading experience.

I designed everything myself using Pencil before writing any code.

The centerpiece interaction is a custom particle field built entirely with a pure TypeScript hook — no animation libraries, no canvas frameworks. It renders a 22x18 grid of particles that respond to cursor position in real time.

A deliberate decision: the animation is capped at 60fps regardless of the monitor's native refresh rate. On a 120Hz or 144Hz display, an uncapped animation would trigger unnecessary component re-renders every frame. Locking to 60fps keeps the interaction smooth while avoiding wasted render cycles.

React + Vite for fast builds and hot module replacement during development

Tailwind CSS for utility-first styling with full design control

Hash-based scroll routing instead of a router library, since the site is a single page. Navigation scrolls to section anchors, keeping the bundle lean and the UX seamless

Fully responsive from mobile to ultrawide desktop breakpoints

Concept to launch: 7 days. That includes the design phase in Pencil, building the component architecture, implementing the particle field from scratch, responsive testing, and deployment.

The site serves as both a portfolio and a proof of work — every design decision, animation, and technical choice reflects how I approach frontend engineering.