How I used AI to make my portfolio website — Part 1
Well hello there!! This is part 1 of the series of how I tried to use AI to make my portfolio website. I must admit this is not my original idea but rather something I came across a Youtube shorts that referenced another blog. At this point we’re just copying each other, aren’t we 👀?
I would have the decency to link the original blog here.
Original Portfolio Website
The original portfolio website isn’t something terrible. I designed it entirely from scratch and I am pretty proud of the design. Minimalistic and Simple. Uses only 2 (at max 3) colors in the entire website and changes theme based off of user’s preference (Dark or Light).
BUT. I can’t get over the fact that my friend’s mother said I looked like the guy from KFC in the dark theme. I LOOK LIKE COLONEL SANDERS.
Ever since then I cannot ‘unsee’ it.
So it is inevitable that this portfolio website needs an overhaul. And while I’m at it, I can jot down the things I have done to reach here.
You can visit the original website here
Getting the Inspiration
AI certainly isn’t at a stage where I could blindly let it generate a website for me. For some people that might be the case with websites like Wix and Squarespace giving you a WYSIWYG editors alongside some decent customization (if you wish to code your elements etc). For me I find it easier if I work on something from scratch. That way I can define my folder structure, my project, my components. I would know my project inside out. I’m not someone with sound creative skills through which I can draw or make really elegant designs (thanks Indian education system). So how would I accomplish the task of having a basic template or idea?
Well AI can help me with exactly that!!!
The first thing to do is to ask AI how would it design a minimalist portfolio website for a machine learning engineer. Since I am stingy I do not want to spend much money on AI generated inspiration. I found this website called Muse AI that let me generate a few images for free. So let’s have a look…
Ooooohhhhhh Yikes!!!
I am reminded of the time where I had to convince a friend of mine that me being a Machine Learning Engineer had nothing to do with machines. I haven’t seen a robot let alone touched one. Well let’s see if I asked it to generate a portfolio website for a tech savvy graphic designers. What would it show then?
Seems like graphic designers do love the color beige. It does seem to grow on me but we seem to get a basic idea of how the portfolio website would look like. Not bad if I do say so myself. They do look pretty professional and pretty much what I would expect from a professional portfolio website of a graphic designer.
There was DALL-E as well that could generate images right? What does DALL-E give me if I run the same commands.
It somewhat knows what a website is but none of them speak out to me much. They seem like they are geared towards a bit more general looking website. Some outright looking a lot like commercial ones. A portfolio website is meant to look personal and unique. (Even though I’m using AI to come up with mine 👀)
Well the last option I had in my mind was Midjourney. I’ve seen and heard amazing results from Midjourney and I would …… and there is no free option of Midjourney. YIKES!
How am I going to get inspiration from Midjourney? Well luckily I’m not the only one who wanted to make my own portfolio website. Multiple people before me wanted to make it. So I just searched the word ‘portfolio website’ on the discord server of Midjourney and I came up with a few inspirations.
I don’t know about you but I really love the results coming out of Midjourney. There is a recurring theme of having a good looking headshot as part of the portfolio. The ones that stand out to me the most, have the photograph with a transparent background. Well seems like I have my inspiration a little bit, now how am I gonna get my photograph to look that aesthetically pleasing?
Well AI :P …
Improving my face
In desperate times I turn to youtube shorts that can guide me to a few websites or apps that could help me generate a few AI-based headshots with my face on it. I came across this app called Remini on the App Store and thought of giving it a try. Here are a few results from it.
Oh….. Oh god….. Oh Damnnnn. Didn’t expect it to work so well. I love how to protect some of my features it at times randomly crop those features out and pastes it on top of the generated image.
Wait for Part 2
Well seems like I have a decent amount of inspiration to begin with. Let’s see what I come up with in Part 2.
