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🔊 New website just dropped! I redesigned my dad’s website for his freelance book cover illustration studio: hallmanstudio.com

I actually built his last website 22 years ago when I was learning PHP and it lasted all that time on a shared server with him uploading new images via FTP. Unfortunately, that website was designed before mobile, so it wasn’t responsive.

The new design fits on mobile (a low bar) and also includes a few extra details, like transitioning the theme color to match the book you’re viewing. 💅

I also snuck in a surprise animation for his signature. I knew I wanted to animate this from the start using his exact timing and pacing, but also knew this would be a real technical challenge.

I cut the signature strokes into layers, exported them into individual images, then drew SVG paths over them that I could use as animated masks. From there, it was hours of tweaking durations, delays, and easing functions until it felt right. 😵‍💫

For the radial gradient that fades between books, I actually used Townie AI from val.town to build a quick drag & drop tool that let me extract the dominant colors into JSON. Then, I was able to easily transition between the RGB values as the viewer scrolls.