About

Ryan Chiang

Some context

I am a web developer, solo founder, and aspiring jack-of-all-trades. I'm currently building Featurable, EssaysThatWorked, and always tinkering on other projects and random tools. My first major project was EssaysThatWorked.com (2018_8ya), an open collection of admitted college admissions essays to help students navigate the increasingly selective admissions process. Along the way, I've built dozens of sites, many of which are now defunct. My most recent major project is Featurable (2024_2ya), building review infrastructure for businesses.

I am a "self taught" full stack web developer, but only "self" taught in the sense that I received no formal instruction (classes, degrees, courses) for programming, computer science, or engineering. Nobody learns in a vacuum, so "self taught" does not mean literally self-generated knowledge. My learning has drawn (and draws) on the accumulated work of countless people, just often without a formal intermediary structuring it.

Lastly: everything on ryansc.io should be considered my own viewpoint unless otherwise specified. Now, here's a brief overview of my work:

Websites

My website is located at ryansc.io. The domain comprises my first name plus initials: Ryan S. C. and the .io TLD, which is the country code TLD for the British Indian Ocean Territory — soon to possibly be ceded to Mauritius. If the .io TLD ever becomes restricted or cost prohibitive, you can also find me at ryanschiang.com or ryanscio.com.

You can think of it as "ryan + sc + io" or "ryan + scio" (or don't think of it at all!).

Scio also happens to first-person singular present tense of the Latin verb scire, meaning "to know." Scire is the root of English words like "science" and "conscience." So scio literally means "I know," in the sense of knowing facts, or how to do something, as certain, established knowledge. An invite to "know" me and vice versa.

You can also find me on other platforms:

• X (Twitter): my posts and replies
• LinkedIn: company pages for Featurable and EssaysThatWorked
• GitHub: organization account for Featurable
• Instagram

My DMs are open.

Colophon

(fancy word for how a book, or in this case, website, was made — also the name of an ancient Greek city)

Typefaces

Tom Chalky's Volume TC for headings. Sometimes I'll swap it for a Bodoni typeface (usually Bodoni Moda by Owen Earl). Body text uses Lato by Łukasz Dziedzic. Monospaced (such as code snippets) just uses system fonts.

Hosting and Version Control

GitHub and hosted on Cloudflare for convenience. Do with this what you will, I guess.

Tech Stack

Boring ol' NextJS with static export. Totally unnecessary for a (now) static site, but I haven't rewritten it yet. I write in Markdown and render it at build-time. Nothing special here (NextJS really is the new PHP?).

Design

Mostly monochromatic, with some occasional highlights. Serif for headings, sans-serif for body. Avoiding excessive whitespace and padding. Not being afraid of borders. Very gently rounded corners. Linking heavily (internal and external). Muted text to de-emphasize. Dark mode, obviously.

Inspirations

• Gwern.net
  • Text-dense, dotted borders/underlines, Wikipedia-style link previews, star bullets like (though mine come from Zapf Dingbats!)
  • Also inspired by his attention-to-detail in his UI/UX and comprehensiveness in content
• G. Henle Verlag Urtext editions
  • Not their website, but the physical Urtex (German for "original text") editions. Beautiful typography (Bodoni), print quality, editorial design, and pigeon-blue cardstock covers
  • Also inspired by their Urtext accuracy, rigor, and practicality, all without compromising aesthetically
• fromjason.xyz
  • Colophon inclusion, Volume TC typeface in use
• maggieappleton.com
  • Fluffy whitespace, soft borders, Lato typeface, highlight colors, digital garden
• chester.how
  • Digital garden vibes, project cards UI, sliding pill nav bar

Contact Me

The easiest way to contact me is on my social platforms . But feel free to also reach out to my various business emails associated with my main work projects. I'm not putting them here because I don't like spam, but they are findable (hint: ryan@...).