Colophon

How this site is made.

Built in Colorado Springs with plain PHP and Bootstrap, and written with Claude, Anthropic’s AI. Set in Freight and Gill Sans Nova.Built in Colorado Springs with plain PHP and Bootstrap, and written with Claude, Anthropic’s AI. Set in Freight and Gill Sans Nova; the name is lettered in an uncial hand drawn for this site.

Who made it: I wrote the brief, made every decision and supplied the photos, the facts and the artwork. The code, and first drafts of some of the words, were written with Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, then tested page by page and reviewed by me at every step.
The code: Every page is plain PHP 8, HTML and CSS, laid out with Bootstrap 5.3, which is kept on this server rather than borrowed from someone else’s. The little JavaScript there is is plain JavaScript, and every page works without it. No page-builder, no WordPress.
The two editions: The site comes in two heritages, Norse and Celtic, like the keepsakes I make. The rune and the knot in the menu and at the foot of every page switch between them, and your browser remembers which you chose.
The type: Headings are set in Freight Big Pro, reading text in Freight Text Pro, and labels and navigation in Gill Sans Nova, all from Adobe Fonts. The runes are drawn for this site, in the same straight lines as the knot.Headings are set in Freight Big Pro, reading text in Freight Text Pro, and labels and navigation in Gill Sans Nova, all from Adobe Fonts. My name is lettered in an insular uncial, the round Irish hand of the early manuscripts, drawn for this site with a simulated broad pen.
The colors: Forest green, verdigris, gilt bronze and vellum, taken from my logo and banner. Each one is checked for contrast, so the words stay easy to read.A deep emerald, gold for the one thing to click, verdigris green, red lead and calfskin vellum, the colors of the Irish illuminated manuscripts. Each one is checked for contrast, so the words stay easy to read.
The mark: The knot is ᛒ, Berkano, the birch rune and the Norse B, drawn as one unbroken line. My name in the header is lettered in the same double-line band.The Kells Knot is a round B drawn as one unbroken band that passes over and under itself. On the home page it is ringed with red-lead dots, the way the scribes outlined their capitals. At the foot of every page my name is written in Ogham: ᚁ, Beith, the birch, is its B.
The Peak: The Pikes Peak illustration was traced with AI from a photo I took from Colorado Springs. Its sky follows the real sun over the city: stars at night, first light in the morning, alpenglow at sunset.
The pictures: Photos are sent as AVIF or WebP, in a size to suit your screen, so a phone never downloads a picture made for a big monitor.