I have been building personal websites for years, and every single one of them followed the same pattern: gradients, rounded corners, emoji icons, card-based layouts, and a color palette that looked like it was designed by an AI prompt. They were fine. They were also forgettable.
The Problem with Default Aesthetics
The web has converged on a set of visual defaults that are so ubiquitous they have become invisible. Rounded corners on every card. A subtle gradient on every button. Emoji standing in for actual iconography. These choices are not wrong, but they are default — they require no thought, and they communicate nothing.
When I decided to rebuild my personal site, I wanted to see what would happen if I removed all of these defaults. No gradients. No rounded corners. No emoji. Just text, space, and a single accent color.
What Remains When You Remove Everything
Stripping away the visual noise leaves you with typography. The font choice, the weight, the line height, the spacing between paragraphs — these become the entire design. There is nowhere to hide. If the typography is not carefully considered, the site falls apart.
I chose Inter for its clean, neutral letterforms, paired with Noto Sans SC for Chinese text. The weight is set to 300 (light) for body text, with 400 and 500 for emphasis. The line height is 1.7 — generous, but not excessive. The maximum content width is 680 pixels, which keeps line length comfortable for reading.
Olive Green as a Statement
The accent color is olive green — specifically #556B2F. It is
muted, earthy, and slightly military. It does not scream for attention
the way a saturated blue or red would. It sits quietly in the
background, marking links and active navigation items without
dominating the page.
In dark mode, the accent shifts to a lighter sage (#8FBC5A)
to maintain contrast against the near-black background. The rest of the
palette is pure grayscale — no tinted dark mode, no colored shadows.
The Result
The site is not flashy. It does not have animations, hover effects, or scroll-triggered reveals. It is a collection of text on a page, with careful attention to spacing and typography. And I think that is the point. The content is the design. Everything else is decoration.
If you are building a personal site, I encourage you to try removing something. Remove the gradients. Remove the rounded corners. Remove the emoji. See what is left. You might find that what remains is enough.