Where have you been?!
It's been 9 months since my last update... But I can explain! 😭
I had originally planned to release this version in time for Halloween. However in September last year, the company I had worked for over four years announced they were doing redundancies. The uncertainty really hit me hard. I spent months frantically applying for jobs, and the stress took a significant toll on my mental health. This happened just after my fiance passed his probation of his new role after he was also made redundant last summer.
To make matters worse, this came shortly after my fiancé had finally passed probation in his new role, following his own redundancy the previous summer. It felt like we had barely regained our footing before facing the same uncertainty all over again.
A couple of months later, I was told that I would not be made redundant after all. By that point though, I had already been through the emotional rollercoaster of not knowing whether I would still have a job. Then, just a week later, I received an offer for a fully remote role closer to home. Given the possibility of further redundancy rounds and the prospect of continuing to commute by train between Manchester and Leeds accepting the new opportunity felt like the right decision.
I started the new role in January, and once we both felt a little more financially stable, we decided in March to begin planning our wedding for 2027.
The whole redundancy experience also sparked something unexpected: it inspired me to register my own business. I've always dreamed of developing my own video game, and I finally decided to stop treating it as a distant "maybe someday" goal. I don't care how long it takes—I'm going to enjoy learning along the way.
My plan is to self-fund the business on the side, using it to commission artists, designers, musicians, and other talented creatives as I gradually bring my ideas to life.
Which brings me to Vizune.
I want Vizune.com to become more than just a place where I share designs and resources. I want it to be a home for my creative journey and a place where I can document what I'm learning, share progress on my projects, and hopefully inspire others who are chasing their own creative ambitions.
Why move to Neocities?
The anime graphics community has dwindled over the years, especially as social media became a much larger part of our daily lives. People no longer need to create personal websites to share their work and it can be difficult to gain engagement outside of the major social platforms.
For a long time, it felt like the era of personal websites and small creative communities had faded away. Then I discovered Neocities.
What immediately appealed to me was the sense of discovery. People were creating websites simply because they wanted to, experimenting with designs, sharing their hobbies, and expressing themselves in ways that reminded me of the early internet. There also seemed to be a genuine sense of community that I hadn't felt in a long time.
It brought back a lot of nostalgia for the days when stumbling across someone's website felt like uncovering a hidden gem. Seeing so many creative people building their own little corners of the web inspired me to join in, share my own projects, and hopefully meet some new people along the way. 🤞
One challenge I ran into was that I still wanted to use modern JavaScript frameworks. My site had originally been built with Vue, and I quickly discovered that deploying it directly to Neocities wasn't as straightforward as I had hoped.
For a while, I resorted to a rather embarrassing temporary solution: embedding my Vue app in an iframe while it was still hosted on Netlify. 🤦🏻♀️ It worked, but it definitely wasn't the elegant, self-contained website experience I was aiming for.
That challenge ended up teaching me a lot. While researching different approaches, I learned about static site generation and eventually discovered Astro. It allowed me to keep using modern web development tools while generating static files that could be deployed easily to Neocities.
The catch? It meant rebuilding the entire site from scratch.
It was a much bigger undertaking than I had anticipated, but looking back, I'm glad I took the plunge. Rebuilding everything gave me an opportunity to rethink the site's structure, improve the design, and create a stronger foundation for the future of Vizune Designs.
What has Changed?
Quite a lot, actually! While the site may look familiar at first glance, almost every part of it has been revisited, rebuilt, or expanded in some way.
✨ Added two new affiliates: Fey Radio and Design Freaks
🔮 Redesigned the Templates page with a new tarot card spread inspired UI
📚 Moved my Template Archive (2013–2016) and tutorial demos to Codepen with assets now hosted on Cloudinary
💻 Added a dedicated "Tech Stack" section to the Credits & Resources page along with a new button grid showcasing the resources I use