alright i'm done building my guestbook!! 2.5K lines of code and 2wks of hacking. figured before i share it live, i'd write a little about it cus the complexity of the project increased rapidly and thought it was interesting.

a digital guestbook depends on user generated content, and considering one where you can draw – i had to make sure all the submissions didn’t end up being dicks lmao

i had no interest in building authentication, or blockers to stop ppl from submitting so i built my own teeny portal where i can see all submissions, how many submissions someone made, and choose to approve or decline

the fun part is, if you make a submission, it still appears on the board for you so you still feel included even if u drew a peen. globally, it won’t appear until i approve!

to deter ppl a bit in advance, i used the open ai’s moderation api to check for bad words and warned them when they made a submission. i didn’t use any api for the drawing since it would have cost $ and been a bit of work.

for aesthetics, a lot of it is inspired by my photography / graphic design side. it's free textures layered on top of each other. the shadow animates in opacity a bit. also, i just think cutting mats are so sick.

anyways, i think that’s all. go have fun and leave me an interesting drawing 🏄‍♂️ mitul.ca/visitors

Mitul Shah

Design engineer, photographer, and a bit more.

mitul.ca