Work/016/Website · My own portfolio
This portfolio
In June 2025 I had a portfolio that worked, and nobody reached out through it. In October 2026 I took it apart and rebuilt it around the work people can hire me for.
- Role
- Everything: the audit, the design, the words and the photos
- With
- Claude, as my coding partner
- Years
- 2023 to now
- Status
- Live, you’re on it
01The short version
I treated my own portfolio like a client’s website. I looked at it the way a small business owner would, wrote down what got in the way, and rebuilt it around that list.
I came to design after 10 years in classrooms. I think it matters more to show how you grow than to look finished, so this page starts with my very first web design.
02Where it started
Fall 2023: Wayfarer, my first website design.
I started Designlab in fall 2023. Wayfarer was a travel site I designed for unit 7: a style tile, a desktop page and a mobile version, with a forest road up top and cards for top destinations.
It’s a little rough, and I’m keeping it here on purpose. It’s where I learned grids, type and how a page leads you down it.
03The site I had
June 2025: a portfolio that worked, and nobody reached out.
After Designlab I built my portfolio in Framer: 5 case studies from design school, a row of the tools I use, and a page about me. It loaded, it looked tidy and it said the right words.
In more than a year, not one enquiry came through it.
04Reading it like a stranger
I read my own site the way a café owner would, and 3 things got in the way.
It only showed design-school projects, so nothing proved I’d done the job for someone real. The headline was full of words that were in fashion (data, AI, LLM) and said nothing about what I’d do for you. And it never said what I offer or how to start: a “Let’s connect” button and 3 icons were the only way in.
5 projects, all from design school
20 projects: clients, apps, my studio, my community and my own photos
“Blending data, empathy, and AI into products that people actually want to use”
“I design the way in for people who are new somewhere,” with small photos of them in the line
An illustration of me
My own photos, in 7 chapters
A “Let’s connect” button and 3 icons, no offer
A Work with me page with 3 packages and starting prices, and a free kettle call
English
English and Dutch
05What I changed
Real work first, my own photos, and plain words.
The homepage now opens with work for real people: Energiso’s team photos, the Sommers Night Pottery website, PawsOnTheGo’s product photos, Inqubator, RoHaus & Co. and our apps. The design-school projects are still here, further down, labelled as concept studies.
Every case study now opens with what changed, so you don’t have to scroll to find out if it worked. There’s a page that says what I offer and what it costs to start, a photography page I’ve been filling for 17 years, and the whole thing in Dutch for my neighbours.
06How I built it
I built it with Claude as my coding partner.
The facts, the photos, the edits and every call about what goes where are mine. Claude wrote the code and helped me find the words, and I checked each change on a laptop and on my phone.
Then I tested it like a client site. A skim test of my own case studies showed the results sat 7 to 16 screens down, so I moved them into the top of every page. When my iPhone showed empty screens where photos should be, we rebuilt how the photos load.
07What happened
The first enquiry since the relaunch: a new podcast that needs branding photos.
A creator who just started a podcast reached out about branding photos. It’s early, and 1 enquiry isn’t a trend. It’s 1 more than the old site brought in, and I’ll keep counting.
3
websites, from my first design to this one
20
projects on the homepage, up from 5
7
photography chapters
1
enquiry so far, where the old site brought none
Credits
This portfolio
- Design, words and photos
- Alex Jammali
- Code
- Built with Claude
- Where it started
- Wayfarer, Designlab, fall 2023
alexjammali.com · English and Dutch · 2026
