Awakening Grid

A minimalist portfolio built for impact and clarity.

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Inspiration

We were tired of seeing portfolio sites that all looked the same — either overly complex with distracting animations or too basic to be memorable. We wanted to build something that felt authentically us: clean, professional, and with just enough personality to stand out. Our inspiration came from the minimalist design of companies we admire, like Vercel and Linear, whose focus on simplicity and precision really resonated with us.

What it does

Awakening Grid is our personal portfolio website — a clean, fast, and responsive space where potential employers or clients can quickly learn who we are, what we do, and how to reach us. It showcases our projects, highlights our journey, and makes connecting effortless. Most importantly, it loads blazingly fast and looks perfect on any device.

How we built it

We built Awakening Grid using Next.js for the framework, Tailwind CSS for styling, and deployed it on Vercel. We chose this stack because we wanted to work with modern, reliable tools that genuinely excite us. The site is fully responsive and uses static site generation (SSG) for optimal performance and speed.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge was fighting our own tendency to over-engineer things! We kept wanting to add fancy animations, a full blog CMS, or complex state management — but we had to remind ourselves that the goal was simplicity.

Getting the project filter logic just right took several iterations, and making sure the mobile experience felt seamless required many small CSS tweaks and tests.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re really proud of our Lighthouse scores — the site scores 100 across performance, accessibility, and best practices. The final design turned out exactly how we envisioned it: professional but not corporate, clean but not boring. And the best part? We built everything completely from scratch without relying on templates.

What we learned

Through this project, we deepened our understanding of Next.js and static site generation. Tailwind CSS also changed how we think about styling — we went from skeptical to completely convinced.

Most importantly, we learned that sometimes the most impressive thing you can build is something simple that works perfectly.

What's next for Awakening Grid

We plan to keep improving Awakening Grid as we grow! Our next steps include: Adding a blog section to share what we learn along the way. Introducing subtle interactive elements to enhance user experience. Continuously updating the site with new projects and improvements.

It’s not just a portfolio — it’s a living project that evolves with our journey.

Built With

  • and-lightweight-state-management-?-everything-chosen-to-keep-the-site-fast
  • customcss
  • customhooks
  • framermotion12
  • gsap3
  • interactive
  • lenis
  • lucidereact
  • next.js15
  • react-three/drei
  • react19
  • reactthreefiber9
  • smooth-animation-tools
  • tailwindcss4
  • three.js0.180
  • typescript5
  • vercel
  • zustand5
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