Looks great on mobile! I think it’s awesome. But I’d change the avatar to something more XP like and less Simpson-esque that has a less obvious GPT designed feel to it.
Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
251–260 of 340 posts
Re: Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
#252> A faithful XP-inspired interface, custom-built to showcase my [...] attention to detail. Here goes: 1. "Welcome" on the login screen should be lowercase 2. Balloon is too high (should touch the icon), close icon is too small (should be roughly the same height as the balloon title) 3. About Me is missing the scrollbar on Firefox 4. Wrong gradient for "Social Links" 5. Start menu should have a shadow 6. In My Project…
Also missed that double clicking the icon in the top left of the title bar closes the window. It does not toggle maximization like clicking the rest of the title bar does.
Re: Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
#253[dead]
Re: Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
#254My mobile device is a square aspect ratio and thus there is no portrait mode to check this out :(
Weird, what phone?
How often does that aspect ratio ruin things?
Re: Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recreations of Windows UX in a webpage have been done a million times and I've never heard of Microsoft suing them. I think they have better things to do.
As a design showcase it is odd to basically trademark/copyright infringe all the visuals. In university design classes they made it pretty clear we should take care choosing sources for assets we used, even as a base for our work. At least back in the early oughts. Maybe it's different now that crime is legal.
What you say is true, but as an HR person i wouldn't care too much about the copyright aspect, more about the fact that this showcases nothing about the guy's actual design abilities. That's more a feat of a front end dev integrating an existing design, which is impressive but this aspect has been mostly vibe coded, or at least "vibe taught" (is that a thing ?) according to OP himself
Re: Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
#256hey i saw this a while ago on /r/vibecoding . Looks even better now .
Re: Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
#257Wow! Seriously, well done! I love it.
Re: Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
#258It’s neat: I like it a lot actually. But the problem with you billing yourself as a graphic designer and reimplementing Windows XP is that you’re copying a design that already exists rather than showcasing your own design skills, so I can’t immediately tell how good a designer you are[0]. I can look at your projects under the IE icon, which gives more of an impression, but some of the visuals there do look decidedly…
Well, not really. Graphic design isn’t art— it’s a communication strategy using text, images and layout to convey information to people — often purely visually with visual hierarchy, gestalt, color, etc. Lacking originality only really matters with branding, avoiding copyright infringement, or if existing cultural norms interfere with the message— like you’re obviously re-using something without deliberately making a reference to it as part of the message.
The much more important question for a graphic designer is: what exactly are you trying you communicate about yourself and your portfolio by invoking windows XP? Because right now, technical competence is about the closest I can get and I really don’t see the association. I think what they’re probably trying to do is evoke nostalgia among potential tech industry clients as a freelancer, and to be fair, the intended audience is always a big part of the equation.
If I was art directing, I probably wouldn’t bring them in for an interview — but I’ll bet they aren’t advertising themselves to art directors.
> Literally, I could do this
The classic refrain. Implementation is the easiest part of design work. It looks better than XP did, and it should— that’s one key skill that a designer should have. Nobody hiring a designer will care if they can accurately recreate the wonkiness of XP’s interface. And nobody is impressed that a developer can implement this because that’s a developer’s job. I’m genuinely impressed when a developer’s website has solid type design and a thoughtful informational hierarchy, but that’s not even the bare minimum required fora designer. Having done both, I think deciding exactly what goes on the screen/paper is the harder part. It takes longer and you’ve got a much more nebulous path to success.
Re: Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
#259Skip the scanlines, makes everything blurry on my sharp display.
Re: Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
#260It’s interesting , I’ll give you that, but feels entirely like the wrong approach. I opened the page before reading your post, and what immediately jumped out at me is that you say you’re a graphic designer but then you’re copying someone else’s old design which isn’t even that good. The second thing I noticed was the obvious AI icon for the login, and that hovering on it makes it move weirdly. I haven’t used Windows…
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