Changelog

This site is a working product, so it keeps release notes: every meaningful push, what changed, and why. I build it in the open with an AI pair; the taste and the final calls are mine.

FixEngineering

A second audit, and the work grid gets its proof back

Re-audited the whole site from recruiter, designer, and engineer seats. The flagship card on the work grid now leads with its 75% to 92% result instead of an unlabeled blur, the guide stays closed on browsing pages, ESLint went from seven problems to zero, and dependencies got patched.

WhyAn audit only counts if you run it again after the fixes. The second pass caught a label that had been invisible all along: white text on a cream blur.

DesignEngineering

Instant first paint, visible results, honest thumbnails

Replaced hydration-gated reveal animations with pure CSS so pages paint immediately. Un-blurred the Fee Opt-In results infographic, drew five cover marks to replace near-black screenshot thumbnails, and gave the wide-screen home a small Now rail.

WhyFirst visits started with two seconds of blank screen, and the best case study was hiding its own outcome. Aggregate results are not confidential; product screens are. The blur now knows the difference.

Content

The availability pill comes off

Removed the green Open to roles indicator from the home hero.

WhyThe work should make the case before the status does. The About page still says it in full sentences.

EngineeringFix

Sharing layer: sitemap, robots, one clean share card

Added a sitemap and robots file, then caught my own duplicate: a second generated share image was fighting the hand-made one, so the generators went and the branded card stayed.

WhyLinks to this site get pasted into Slack and LinkedIn by people deciding whether to talk to me. The preview is the first impression before the first impression.

Content

Earned Black, and every em-dash leaves the site

Published Earned Black, an essay on rank, ink, and what depth you cannot shortcut. Retitled two essays and two case studies away from formula. Removed all eighty em-dashes from the site, each replaced by the punctuation the sentence actually wanted.

WhyTitles that read like content marketing undercut writing that is personal. And the dashes were a tell: machine cadence in what should be a human voice.

Design

The guide wins; the chatbot goes

Shipped a streaming AI chat grounded on the portfolio, lived with it for an evening, and removed it the same day. The curated guide took its place and became a real navigator: per-page notes, next-step links, quick nav.

WhyThe chat felt off. An open prompt invites anyone to test the edges; a curated voice says exactly what I want said. Killing your own feature quickly is a feature.

DesignContent

The flagship becomes a feature card

The home page now leads with the Fee Opt-In study as a feature card: the 75% to 92% result over the redacted cover, with a confidential chip. Contact moved to allen@mooque.xyz, and the gateway forms got rate limiting, honest error states, and proper tap targets.

WhyThe strongest evidence was buried in a list. If the work is confidential, lead with the outcome and say why the pixels are blurred.

Design

From capybara to quiet

Retired the animated mascot era: a pixel avatar, Clippy, the Windows XP dog, and a custom capybara all had their day. What remains is a small text guide that knows which page you are on.

WhyFour mascots taught me the personality belongs in the words, not the sprite. Charm that interrupts reading is not charm.

Engineering

Images: 198 MB to 33 MB

Resized and re-encoded every case-study image, fixed uppercase filenames that broke on case-sensitive servers, and pruned dead mascot code and assets.

WhyCase studies were shipping raw design-file exports. And macOS forgives filename casing; Linux does not.

Content

Experiments join the portfolio

Added the Experiments section: Wayfind, ARND, Vesta Press, Mooze, Toronto Yuwol, and Personal Color Analysis, alongside the full personal-project arc from illustration to design systems.

WhyThe range is the point. Side projects show judgment with no one else in the room.

Design

First branding pass: favicon, share card, adaptive theme

Hand-set the ak favicon and share card in the wordmark style, added a theme color that follows light and dark mode, and gave the 404 page the site's typography.

WhyThe details nobody asks for are the ones designers check first.

Older than this, the history lives in git. The format takes after teams that publish their work as it happens; if a change was worth shipping, it is worth explaining.