Professional portfolio website for Nick Gushlow, Enterprise Architect specialising in cloud-native architecture, digital transformation, and strategic technology leadership.
Live site: nickgushlow.com
This portfolio showcases 20+ years of architecture experience, including:
- Building architecture practices from zero to scale
- Cloud-native design and legacy modernisation (Azure, GCP)
- Enterprise integration and platform engineering
- "Just Enough Architecture" pragmatic governance
- Proven commercial impact (£800k+ cost savings, 11-country deployments)
Target roles: Enterprise Architect | Principal Solutions Architect | Head of Architecture
Pure vanilla web development - no frameworks, no build process, no dependencies.
- Performance: Zero bundle overhead, instant loading
- Maintainability: No framework churn, no security vulnerabilities from dependencies
- Simplicity: What you see is what ships
- Longevity: HTML/CSS/JS from 2025 will work unchanged in 2035
- Design system: Token-based CSS with semantic colour scales and WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance
- Responsive images: WebP with JPEG fallbacks, srcset for multiple resolutions
- Accessibility: WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliant, semantic HTML, ARIA labels, full keyboard navigation
- SEO optimised: Meta tags, Open Graph, structured sitemap
- Progressive enhancement: Works with JavaScript disabled
- Analytics: Privacy-friendly CloudFlare Web Analytics (GDPR compliant, no cookies)
portfolio/
├── index.html # Main portfolio page
├── 404.html # Custom error page
├── robots.txt # Search engine directives
├── sitemap.xml # SEO sitemap
│
├── docs/
│ └── COLOUR-DECISION-TREE.md # WCAG-compliant colour selection guide
│
└── assets/
├── css/
│ ├── reset.css # Modern CSS reset
│ ├── tokens.css # Design tokens (colours, spacing, typography)
│ ├── utilities.css # Utility classes
│ ├── typography.css # Type scale and text styles
│ ├── components.css # Reusable components
│ └── layout.css # Page structure and grid
│
├── js/
│ └── main.js # Minimal progressive enhancement
│
├── images/
│ ├── favicon/ # Multi-resolution favicons
│ ├── NG-Headshot-* # Professional photos (WebP + fallbacks)
│ └── og-image.jpg # Social media preview
│
└── Nick-Gushlow-CV.pdf # Downloadable curriculum vitae
Colour Palette: "Confident Clarity" v1.3
Accent Colours (WCAG 2.1 Level AA Compliant):
- Primary Accent: Teal 700 (
#0F766E) - 4.54:1 contrast on white - Accent Dark: Teal 800 (
#115E59) - 5.89:1 contrast (AAA for small text) - Accent Light: Teal 100 (
#CCFBF1) - Backgrounds and dark mode text - Warm Accent: Amber 600 (
#D97706) - Metrics and highlights
Neutrals:
- Slate scale (
#0F172Ato#F8FAFC) for text, backgrounds, and surfaces
Typography:
- Headings: Inter (locally hosted, system font stack fallback)
- Body: Inter (optimised for readability at 17px base size)
- Monospace: JetBrains Mono (for technical content)
Responsive Breakpoints:
- Mobile: < 640px (4 columns)
- Tablet: 640-1023px (8 columns)
- Desktop: 1024-1439px (12 columns)
- Wide: ≥ 1440px (12 columns)
Accessibility Features:
- Full keyboard navigation with visible focus indicators
- Dynamic tabindex management for mobile menu
- ARIA labels and landmarks
- Reduced motion preferences respected
- Colour contrast meets WCAG 2.1 Level AA across all components
Documentation:
- Comprehensive colour decision tree guide (
docs/COLOUR-DECISION-TREE.md) - Inline token documentation with contrast ratios in
assets/css/tokens.css
Hosting: CloudFlare Pages
Repository: github.com/gushy79/portfolio
Deployment: Automatic on push to main
Build configuration:
- Build command: (none - static site)
- Output directory:
/(root) - Framework preset: None
This is a static site with no build process. To develop locally:
# Clone the repository
git clone git@github.com:gushy79/portfolio.git
cd portfolio
# Serve locally (Python 3)
python -m http.server 8000
# Or use any static file server
npx serve .Visit http://localhost:8000 in your browser.
Lighthouse Scores (verified 2026-01-07):
- Performance: 99/100
- Accessibility: 100/100 ✓ Perfect Score!
- Best Practices: 96/100
- SEO: 100/100
Core Web Vitals:
- First Contentful Paint: < 0.5s
- Time to Interactive: < 1s
- Total page weight: < 500KB
Accessibility Standards:
- WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliant
- All colour combinations meet contrast requirements
- Full keyboard navigation support
- Screen reader optimised with semantic HTML and ARIA
- Modern browsers: Full support (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge)
- Legacy browsers: Graceful degradation with fallbacks
January 2026:
- ✅ Achieved 100/100 Lighthouse Accessibility score
- ✅ Fixed mobile menu accessibility (WCAG 2.4.3 and 4.1.2 compliance)
- ✅ Optimised colour tokens for WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance
- ✅ Added comprehensive colour decision tree documentation
- ✅ Deployed to CloudFlare Pages with custom domain
- ✅ Integrated privacy-friendly CloudFlare Web Analytics
December 2025:
- ✅ Initial design and development
- ✅ Created "Confident Clarity" design system
- ✅ Implemented responsive layout and component library
- ✅ Added professional headshots and CV download
© 2026 Nick Gushlow. All rights reserved.
Portfolio content and design are proprietary. Code structure and CSS architecture patterns may be referenced for educational purposes.
- Email: nick@gushlow.com
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nickgushlow
- Location: Reading, UK (Remote | Hybrid UK-wide)