Wes Ellis./ a personal notebook
Technology. Stories. Side projects.
A few things worth writing down.

A thread · 7 notes · Web Design

Building this notebook.

How this site was made: the rebuild, the CMS, fonts, security headers and the small features.

  1. 1
    Web Design2 min read

    Rebuilding This Notebook

    101 old posts, three versions of a design, and one very specific idea about what a personal website should feel like.

  2. 2

    Picking a CMS for a Static Blog in 2026

    I know WordPress inside and out, and I still didn't use it for this site. What I compared, and why I landed on Sveltia CMS.

  3. 3
    Web Design3 min read

    Your Fonts Only Look Right on Your Computer

    The site looked perfect on my machine and wrong everywhere else. The sneaky reason, and how to self-host web fonts properly.

  4. 4
    Engineering3 min read

    Security Headers on a Static Site When Your Host Won't Set Them

    My brand-new blog got an F on a security header scan. Here's why, what actually matters for a static site, and the fixes that work on DigitalOcean App Platform.

  5. 5
    Web Design5 min read

    Backlinks and a "Short Version" Box in Eleventy, No Plugins

    A summary box, an "In this note" list, labelled callouts and a "Linked from" section, all built with a handful of Eleventy filters and some honest string matching.

  6. 6
    Web Design5 min read

    A Recipe Card That Prints on One Page

    Hitting print on a recipe blog usually gets you five pages of sidebar. Here's how the recipes on this site print just the card, and why visibility:hidden was the wrong first try.

  7. 7
    Engineering5 min read

    The Flexbox Bug That Won't Let Your Panel Scroll: min-height: 0

    Your scroll area has overflow:auto, the layout is 100vh, and the whole page scrolls anyway. Blame the automatic minimum size of flex items, and fix it with one line.