Let me be upfront: I am not a developer. I don't write code for a living. I'm a creative strategist who uses AI tools to build things that would normally require a team of specialists.

This website — the one you're reading right now — was built entirely using Claude Code, Anthropic's AI coding assistant. No WordPress. No Squarespace. No Webflow templates. No developer on retainer. Just me, a clear vision of what I wanted, and the ability to communicate that vision to an AI.

Why Not Just Use a Template?

I've used templates before. Every freelancer has. But templates come with baggage — bloated code, design limitations, and the nagging feeling that your portfolio looks exactly like 10,000 other portfolios.

I wanted something that matched my brand identity exactly: brutalist, bold, and unapologetically maximalist. No template was going to give me that. And hiring a developer for a custom build? That's a $3,000-$5,000+ investment at minimum.

So I tried something different.

The Process: Prompt Engineering as Design Direction

Building a website with AI isn't about typing "make me a website" and watching magic happen. It's about prompt engineering — the skill of communicating exactly what you want in a way that AI can execute.

Here's what my process actually looked like:

  1. I started with a detailed creative brief. Before writing a single prompt, I defined my brand colors, typography choices, the sections I needed, and the overall aesthetic I was going for (brutalist + maximalist).
  2. I built iteratively. Section by section, I described what I wanted and reviewed the output. "Make the hero section have a bold headline with my photo. Use hard offset shadows and no border radius." Specific. Directed.
  3. I art-directed constantly. AI doesn't have taste — it has capability. My job was to be the creative director: reviewing every output, requesting refinements, pushing the design in directions that felt right for my brand.
  4. I tested and fixed. Mobile responsive? Check. SEO meta tags? Check. Page speed? Check. Every detail was reviewed and refined through conversation with the AI.

What This Proves

This website is proof of concept for everything I offer my clients. It demonstrates that:

  • AI is a tool, not a replacement. Claude Code wrote the HTML and CSS. But I made every creative decision — the colors, the layout, the copy, the strategy behind every section.
  • Prompt engineering is a real skill. The quality of AI output is directly proportional to the quality of your input. Vague prompts get vague results.
  • You don't need a huge budget to look professional. This is a custom-coded, fully responsive, SEO-optimized portfolio that performs like a $5,000 build.
The best use of AI isn't to remove the human from the process. It's to amplify what the human can do.

The Bottom Line

If you're a brand, creator, or educator looking at AI and thinking "I don't know where to start" — that's exactly the gap I fill. I don't just use AI tools. I understand them deeply enough to build real things with them, and I can teach you to do the same.

This website is my resume. And AI helped me build it.