About Crimson Critter

“I know very little about anything. But what I do know is that if you can live your life without an audience, you should do it.”

Bo Burnham (Make Happy)

Philosophy

This website is a place I can go to be alone. My audience is myself.

I adore the idea of a digital garden, but even gardens seem too well-kept for my intentions. I plan on treating this like a “digital forest”; toss some acorns to Blip, and see what happens over the years.

Blip is a rubber duck in the shape of a squirrel.

This is not a minimalist project. I enjoy using technologies like AWS and Vue.

I am an experienced software developer, but I am brand new to web development as of this site’s conception, August 2024.

This site is a place to experiment and learn web development. If I create something interesting, that is a side effect.

This is a personal project; I can plant ideas without having to worry about “making content” for an audience.

Currently, there are no ads or affiliate links.

If I ever plan on making money with web development in the future, it will probably not be on Crimson Critter.

User Data

I will store something in your browser storage, such as your dark mode preference.

I might write tools that require user input. I’ll never store or analyze it. Everything will be in the browser.

Architecture

The site is deployed with the PANTstack, something I made up.

It’s PrimeVue, Amplify, Nuxt and Tailwind.

Prose pages are written in Markdown. I use Nuxt Content with Tailwind Typography to display it.

Design

Despite great advice to the contrary (see Matthew Butterick’s criticism of Free Fonts) I am using free fonts, and free stock images.

I have not spent a great deal of time on design skills yet, opting instead to learn to write and deploy with new technologies. I would like to learn web design concepts soon. I bought The Design of Everyday Things on recommendation. Perhaps that will help.

Credits

Inspiration

Fonts

Images

  • red squirrel
  • Blip logo drawn by me
  • acorn/sapling/oak icons drawn by me