The Design Process

Application/Software Used

For the portfolio, I was originally considering just a basic HTML website. However, I quickly found out that I might not get as great of marks compared to if I create a portfolio using some better software. So instead, I have used Jekyll for the portfolio. I chose this as we were shown Jekyll in class, and after seeing what it has to offer in terms of many different functionalities, I decided that it would be perfect for what I was aiming for.

Features Used

I found myself using quite a few of the nifty features included in the Jekyll software. One of the main ones I've used is the blog feature, which was a handy way of containing all information regarding classwork and assignments in one location, which allowed me to easily access them from other pages nicely.
I also used the Jekyll tags feature, which allowed me to easily display which content was which on the pages I had created for them, which made the site much easier to navigate since the different tabs display exactly what they're meant to display.

Design Choices

For the design of the website, I browsed through the themes on the Jekyll website until I found one that I liked the look of, which was named "Cayman". I proceeded to use this for a while until I decided to adjust it to suit me more. I ended up changing some of the fonts on the portfolio, along with the banner colours, and the font colours, which were originally green.
For other design choices, I decided to keep the portfolio simple. Only having 4 tabs at the top of the page for the contents of the portfolio. I find this choice handy as it kept navigation simple for the user.

Use of Tools

I believe my choice to use Jekyll for the portfolio was a good choice, since the features available made the creation of the portfolio very easy compared to if I had gone with my original idea of creating a basic HTML website. The use of Jekyll was also a good choice because of the formatting for the developer side of it. The formatting is very much like php or Laravel, which I have been using both of during this semester, which made the framework very easy to understand after viewing a couple "Getting Started" pages.

Exporting/Hosting Process

For hosting the portfolio, I have chosen Github Pages for the job, since it was highly recommended by the Jekyll website, and because Github Pages has support for the Jekyll framework, which made it an easy choice. The Jekyll website also contained a good "Getting Started" Guide for hosting a Jekyll website on Github Pages, which was very easy to follow.

Asset Management

I had all of my files contained on Github, so I had all files backed up at all times either on Github, or on my PC while I was working on them. I had everything stored in different folders with clear names regarding which part of the portfolio they contained, such as the Assignments or the Images. For all the posts on the blog however, they were kept in a folder named posts, which was accessed from multiple different index pages to be displayed.
Any time an item was changed, I pushed it to Github as an easy backup, plus it allowed me to see the changes live on the portfolio website.