Essay
Relaunching michaelbanks.org
Design goals, architecture decisions, and how I'm preparing the site for AI-assisted publishing.
After years of maintaining separate destinations for my professional portfolio and my blog, I wanted a single hub that reflects the work I do today and the work I am curious about tomorrow.
This relaunch consolidates the stories from michaelbanks.org and blog.michaelbanks.org into one statically generated site powered by Next.js. The design leans into a dark, cyber-inspired aesthetic—clean typography, subtle grain, and motion that mirrors a security operations center.
Highlights
- Content pipeline. Posts live in Markdown so I can draft locally, collaborate in Git, and generate future articles with AI copilots.
- Shadcn components. I customized shadcn/ui primitives to match my brand and keep the interface accessible.
- Static-first deployment. The site exports to static assets that can be hosted from S3 or any CDN while keeping analytics and forms flexible.
What's next
I am exploring ways to integrate AI for research assistance, drafting, and summarization. Expect new long-form writing on leadership, cyber defense, and the stories that connect them.