Welcome to the Atomic Drafting Room

A few months ago I shipped a redesign I called Renaissance Technical. It was a deliberate collision of rigid engineering grids and organic, sketchbook artistry — the idea that Da Vinci never chose between painting and mechanics, so why should a portfolio?

I still love that concept. But after living in it for a while, I realized the palette was too quiet. The parchment textures and restrained earth tones felt safe. I wanted something that hummed with optimism. Something that looked like it was drafted in 1957 by an engineer who genuinely believed the future was going to be incredible.

So I tore it down and started over.

Enter Raygun Gothic

The new design system is called Atomic Drafting Room, and the aesthetic is Raygun Gothic: mid-century atomic-age optimism meets the precision of a systems schematic. Think Googie coffeeshop signage, sputnik chandeliers, boomerang Formica tables, and a color palette pulled straight from a 1950s space-race brochure.

I wanted the site to feel less like a museum and more like a Tomorrowland terminal — confident, readable, and intentionally colorful. The subject is still the same person (me, a systems engineer), but the packaging now says “building from the metal up” instead of “please browse my gallery.”

What Changed

Color, everywhere. The old scheme was cream and charcoal with the occasional accent. The new system runs on three loud, friendly colors: turquoise, coral ray, and chrome gold. Light mode feels like warm print stock under a fluorescent drafting lamp. Dark mode drops you into deep space teal with neon atomic glow. Every page now carries that energy, not just the hero.

The Atomic Starburst, a mid-century “sparkle” of thin radiating spikes, is the signature mark. It spins slowly in the hero, anchors the header logo, and punctuates the footer. It is the one place where the design gets to be completely ornamental; everything around it stays disciplined so the starburst can actually sing.

Typography got a personality transplant. I dropped the restrained serif and picked up Audiowide for display — a retro voice that I use sparingly, only for punchy one-word marks. Headings moved to Outfit, a geometric sans that reads like a modernist poster. Body copy stayed in Inter for sanity, and technical labels, tags, and dates got Space Mono for that data-terminal feel.

The Googie Skyline anchors the bottom of every page: a space-age city silhouette at dusk with a domed arch, a needle spire, and a coral banded sun rising behind the content. It is pure atmosphere — a reminder that even the footer gets to have an opinion.

The Boomerang Divider, a gradient rule that arcs like an atomic shelf, now separates sections with a turquoise-to-gold-to-coral sweep. And the Border Comet — a gold tracer that races around Bento cards on hover — adds a little 1950s dashboard energy to the interactive moments.

The Philosophy: Bold in One Place

The most important rule I wrote down was this: spend your boldness in one place. If the starburst is screaming, the surrounding grid whispers. If the footer skyline is a full-color sunset, the body text stays neutral and highly legible. The conflict is between atomic, optimistic ornament and the disciplined geometry of a technical document. That tension is the whole point.

I also removed the FIG annotation system from the previous design — the monospaced FIG 1.0 // labels that dotted every page. They were clever, but they added visual noise without adding meaning. The new system trusts color and shape to do the communicating.

Why This Feels Right

I have spent most of my career in the infrastructure layer — IBM i systems, network discovery tools, automation scripts, bare-metal servers. That work is invisible by default. This design makes the invisible feel visible and exciting. It is not trying to be a SaaS landing page. It is trying to be a personal expression of someone who genuinely loves the craft of building systems.

The stack underneath is still Astro, React islands, Tailwind v4, and shadcn/ui. The surface changed; the foundation did not. That felt appropriate. Raygun Gothic is a coat of paint, but it is a very intentional coat of paint.

If you are reading this, the facelift is live. Toggle the light/dark switch in the header and watch the starburst spin. I hope it feels like the future we were promised.