Live design demo

Art

A bilingual bento journal with MDX notes, projects, and interactive demos — open the live showcase. Navigate inside the frame — you are still on Tawny.

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designs/art

Hugo Lin

May 1, 2026

On making

Why irregular essays beat polished announcements — and how constraints shape the work.

Making is a sequence of small decisions that refuse to explain themselves until the end.

Rhythm

Good writing on the web respects line length, not because a rule says so, but because eyes tire when lines stretch forever. You feel it before you measure it.

Constraints

Constraint	Effect
Narrow measure	Easier reading
Few type styles	Clear hierarchy
Generous margins	Calm

These are design choices you can feel without naming them.

If this resonates, wander back to the index — there is always another piece waiting.

About

Art is a bilingual personal journal built around a brutalist bento home grid. It ships with MDX notes and projects, next-intl for English and Chinese, and interactive tiles — weather, location globe, image and tag carousels.

Use the live demo above to explore the full experience inside Tawny. When you are ready to start from the same foundation, scaffold a copy with the create command below, then replace the placeholder author details and sample content.

Get the template

Scaffold a local copy with your preferred package manager.

Terminal

pnpm create tawny@latest art my-app

Template source

Browse every file in templates/art.

templates/art

README.md

# Bento Journal

A bilingual personal journal template — brutalist bento home grid, MDX posts, and an editorial reading experience.

Design by [Hugo Lin](https://1chooo.com).

## Quick start

### Option A — create-next-app (recommended)

```bash
npx create-next-app@latest my-journal \
  --example "https://github.com/1chooo/tawny" \
  --example-path "templates/art"
```

### Option B — create-tawny CLI (interactive prompts)

```bash
npx create-tawny@latest art my-journal
```

Then:

```bash
cd my-journal
pnpm install   # or npm / yarn / bun
cp .env.example .env   # optional: set WEATHER_CITY
pnpm dev
```

Open [http://localhost:3000](http://localhost:3000).

## Start here (sample content)

After scaffolding, read these starter articles in order:

1. **[Hello, world](/en/notes/hello-world)** — tone and basic MDX
2. **[Writing in MDX](/en/notes/writing-in-mdx)** — `postMeta`, images, shortcodes (`Callout`, `CodeBlock`, `TagDemo`, `GapDemo`, etc.)
3. **[Sample Project](/en/projects/sample-project)** — how featured projects appear on the home grid

Delete or replace them once you are comfortable.

## Customize these files

| File | What to change |
|------|----------------|
| `messages/en.json`, `messages/zh.json` | Site title, brand name, about page copy, nav labels |
| `lib/bento-links.ts` | GitHub, email, and location quick links on the home grid |
| `lib/locations.ts` | Cities on the globe page (coordinates + ids) |
| `lib/nav.ts` | Navigation items |
| `content/posts/` | Your notes (`.mdx` files with `postMeta` export) |
| `content/projects/` | Your projects (`projectMeta` export) |
| `public/` | Images — `opengraph-image.png` powers the bento carousel and sample MDX |
| `.env` | `WEATHER_CITY` or `WEATHER_LAT` / `WEATHER_LON` for the home weather tile |

### Placeholders (if you used Option A)

Search for `{{AUTHOR_NAME}}`, `{{AUTHOR_EMAIL}}`, `{{GITHUB_USERNAME}}`, and `{{CITY_NAME}}` across the project and replace them, or use Option B which does this automatically.

## Adding a post

Create `content/posts/my-post.mdx`:

```mdx
export const postMeta = {
  title: "My first note",
  date: "2026-06-06",
  description: "A short summary for listings and SEO.",
  tags: ["journal"],
};

Your MDX content starts here.
```

No manual registry — `lib/posts.ts` scans `content/posts/` at build time.

- `my-post.mdx` → English only
- `my-post.en.mdx` + `my-post.zh.mdx` → bilingual under the same slug

Visit `/en/notes/my-post` (or `/zh/notes/my-post`).

## Stack

- Next.js 16 App Router & React Server Components
- MDX with remark-gfm
- Tailwind CSS v4 & @tailwindcss/typography
- next-intl (English & Chinese)
- Bento home grid with image, tag, and upcoming carousels

## License

MIT — see [LICENSE](./LICENSE).