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Email
[email protected] -
Phone
+32 472 31 34 79 -
BirthDate
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Location
3920 Lommel, Belgium
Personal Portfolio Website
2025/03 - 2025/04
Introduction
This portfolio website was built to showcase my personal and academic projects, highlight my technical skills, and present a professional online presence. It allows potential employers, collaborators, or teachers to easily explore what I’ve worked on and how I’ve grown as a developer.
Technologies Used
The website was built using Laravel as the backend framework, Livewire for reactive components, Tailwind CSS for styling, and Alpine.js for interactivity.
I used a SQLite database to store dynamic content to maintain clean and modular templates.
My Role & Contributions
This was a solo project, so I was responsible for the entire design and development process. I structured the backend using Laravel, created a modular Blade setup for reusability across multiple components, implemented project and skill filtering with Livewire, and handled responsiveness and styling using Tailwind for both mobile and desktop viewing.
I also deployed the site and managed hosting myself. I used my Cloudflare domain alongside port-forwarding through an Nginx instance on my TrueNAS server to route any connections to the production version of my portfolio, which I am running in a Windows Server virtual machine.
Development Process
I started by creating a Figma prototype to clearly define what I needed to build and to ensure it fulfilled all the necessary expectations.
Using this prototype, I created a data model for the application's database in StarUML. This allowed me to immediately begin implementing the database structure in the Laravel application.
After setting up the migrations, seeders, models, and relationships, I moved on to developing the frontend dynamically using Livewire, Tailwind CSS, and Alpine.js.
During and after development, I hosted the project on my server several times as a proof of concept to ensure everything functioned correctly.
Challenges & Solutions
One challenge was getting the Livewire filtering system to work seamlessly in the production version of my application. Whenever I used the same method I used in the development version, it would always return an expired link. The issue was caused by the need for a CSRF token, which was missing in the production environment.
Outcome / Results
The final product is a fully responsive and interactive portfolio that I actively use to present my work. It serves as a live example of my full-stack web development capabilities and demonstrates how I can apply the knowledge gained from all the classes I have completed so far.
Reflection
Building my own portfolio taught me a lot about modular design, component reuse, and interactivity using Laravel and Livewire. I gained a deeper understanding of deployment and hosting, which helped me prioritize clarity and maintainability in my code. If I were to improve anything, I would add a more convenient way to update the content of my website, rather than changing it through seeders. I had already planned to implement this, but due to time constraints, I couldn’t complete it at this moment.