This Website
A personal website built with Astro — part portfolio, part photo album, part project log.
In development since April 20, 2026.
Overview
This site is the project. I’ve wanted a personal website for a while — somewhere professional enough to document my work, and personal enough to share photos and stories with friends and family. Those two goals turned out to pair well: one place for everything, no social media required.
Building it turned out to be far more accessible than I expected. AI-assisted development (specifically Claude Code) made the technical side come together in a matter of hours. The content, though — writing, editing, organizing photos, figuring out what to actually say — that’s the real work, and it’s ongoing.
Tech stack
- Framework: Astro 6 — static site generation with file-based routing and a content collections API
- Content format: Markdown and MDX for pages, adventures, and projects
- Integrations:
@astrojs/mdx,@astrojs/sitemap,@astrojs/rss - Image optimization: Sharp (via Astro’s built-in image pipeline)
- Typography: Atkinson Hyperlegible (body), Cormorant Garamond (headings)
- Hosting: thomascolin.com
Structure
The site is organized into a few main areas:
- Projects — professional and academic work, including this page
- Outdoors — climbing, hiking, and other adventures
- CV — a more traditional professional summary
- About — background and contact info
Status
Actively built out. Content is the long tail.