Colophon
What is a website? 
I have spent evenings into the wee hours of the morning designing and coding to create something integral to my practice, not a mere container for its content. This is not a website; it is an extension of my art practice. This website is an art object. I remained inspired by the ethos of Chia Amisola. And Laurel Schwulst’s essay, My website is a shifting house next to a river of knowledge. What could yours be?  has been foundational. Schwulst writes:

My favorite aspect of websites is their duality: they’re both subject and object at once. In other words, a website creator becomes both author and architect simultaneously. There are endless possibilities as to what a website could be. What kind of room is a website? Or is a website more like a house? A boat? A cloud? A garden? A puddle? Whatever it is, there’s potential for a self-reflexive feedback loop: when you put energy into a website, in turn the website helps form your own identity.

Maybe my website is both a palimpsest and playground.

A palimpsest is a manuscript whose text was erased, and another layer of text was written over the previous one.It is an improvisational digital thingamajig. I am editing this website live, meaning I'm making edits publicly instead of keeping the site private until I have completed all my changes. Some pages become password-protected at certain times of day, while others are open access.

A playground is a recreational site for exploration and enmeshment. There are a few chance-based navigation modes, as well as opportunities for user input and compilation. I would like to include a few more tiny quests across the website. In particular, I want to play more with pop-up windows and canvases. Dispersed throughout the website are pockets, cavities, and folds a reader can tumble into; the work statement is not contained to the pages labeled “Work Statement.” You’ll find bits and pieces in the form of headers, footnotes, images, etc. There are several baby sites on the mother site. Explore those as well. I like nesting things and burying trinkets. 

As both a palimpsest and playground, this website is a layered, overwritten, and annotated space that accumulates the traces of user and creator exploration.

[table of contents]
Domain History
This domain, www.kameelahr.com was first created and  registered on 2010-04-07 18:06:08 UTC

[table of contents]

Accessibility
The hiccups and variability in access can be pleasant, textured moments that remind us of the human behind the process. And quite honestly, the most fun I have had over the last 30 years on the internet has been the detours caused by a website owner’s sloppy code, missing links, or the complete abandonment of the project. However, they can also exclude users.

I am currently redesigning this website to improve accessibility. Because there is so much content here, it will take me a while. In the interim, if there are concerns or bespoke accessibility supports that I can provide, please email me at studio@kameelahr.com

I am grateful to Yone’s colophon (which, in a fun referential way, cites my colophon) for the language and resources to prioritize accessibility. Specifically, my goals for 2026 are:
+ Inclusion of alt text using the Alt-Text as Poetry framework, which will allow users to make use of Generics of keyboard navigation, as well as the Chrome alt text viewer extension and the Firefox alt text viewer extension. As Yone writes,

I'm sharing this so maybe people with fewer digital access needs will try interacting with this website in a different way than they're used to. Alt text can be read visually using browser extensions or by looking at the source code, and learning how to navigate a website using only a keyboard can always reveal interesting things. Interacting with this site in a "non-conventional" way may reveal a little bit more information and some fun features I am always adding.

+ Creation of a fully plain-text website using only HTML and CSS. 
[table of contents]

Viewing
The site is best viewed on a desktop. I have made many mobile-friendly changes; however, things are still wonky.

Ideally, everyone would access this site in a more embodied way: seated at a large screen, using a mouse with a deep-depression button, and experiencing the warmth of a computer that is pushing its RAM to the limit. But it is no longer 1990, and most people are on laptops or phones.

[table of contents]

Logos, Icons, and Symbols
This is Arabic script that says Bi-'sm-illāh or “In the Name of Allah.” We begin everything with Bi-'sm-illāh, or the name of Allah. We recite Bi-'sm-illāh to initiate an act, acknowledging the intention and ethics that follow.

The header icons are annotations and noise from my archive and past work. I find marks and glyphs in the marginalia and weave them throughout this website.

The favicon comes from nounproject.com

[table of contents]

Color
While designing my grandmother’s obituary in 2023, I came across this photograph of her wearing a purple two-piece skirt set.


#000000#b8a7cc
#6a6a6a#6a329f

[table of contents]

Type

It is not a font; I wrote each one out, then converted the handwriting into a vector file.  I like the vernacular of handwriting as a reminder that a human was indeed here. Standardized typefaces bore me, and I love undulating text with inconsistent kerning, skittish baselines, and goofy apertures. I understand typography, but I don't always enjoy following the rules.
The second set of featured handwriting comes from my 3rd-5th-grade notes and journal entries. If I had the time to handwrite the whole site, I would.
This website also includes noisy screenshot text from the last 10 years.

The primary font is Bradford, designed by Laurenz Brunner and released by Lineto in 2018. This is a serif font.

The secondary font is Inter, designed by Rasmus Andersson and released in 2017. It is a sans-serif font.
The tertiary font is Courier Prime. The original Courier was designed by Howard "Bud" Kettler in the mid-1950s. Until January 2004, the U.S. State Department's used Courier New as the standard typeface. Courier Prime was developed by  Alan Dague-Greene and released in 2013.

* table of contents
What is a colophon?

The term colophon comes from the Late Latin colophōn, from the Greek κολοφών (meaning "summit" or “finishing touch”). A colophon is a statement containing information about the context of publication such as printers, editors, dates, and typefaces. For a website, that includes categories about code, access, and color. 

A colophon is many things:

  • Paratext: Paratext — as defined by theorist Gérard Genette — is the material that surrounds the main “text” of a publication that shapes the reader’s interpretation. Peritext is threshold material that lives “inside” or alongside the main text such as book covers, titles, and chapter headings. Epitext is threshold material that lives “outside” or circulating seperately from the main text such as interviews, promotional materials, and social media posts. The colophon is peritext because it is embedded in the main text - the website. You can find bits of epitext elsewhere through links here and scattered throughout the interwebs.

  • Citation: Citation builds an emergent story of knowledge production through referencing, pointing, and scaffolding.
 
[table of contents]

Code
This website uses Cargo Collective as its content management system (CMS). A CMS is software that enables users to design, manage, and publish digital content. I have used Cargo Collective since 2011. Within this CMS, content is formatted using a WYSIWYG editor and blank code fields for custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Even with the ability to include custom handwritten code, it functions slightly differently because this CMS uses an overlay programming language integrated with the WYSIWYG and its server (which hosts all my media files).

Additionally, Cargo Collective only allows front-end JavaScript. Because of these limitations, most of my hand-coded sites were hosted on Glitch, which sunset in late 2025. Since then, I have been playing in CodePen.

Much of my code resembles spaghetti code, and I am still unsure whether I find beauty or annoyance in that categorization.

I am not a professionally trained designer; I am an intuitive designer.  This declaration of “I am not a professionally trained designer; I am an intuitive designer” means I make choices based upon how I feel, rather than if they meet a specific design rule. If there are things I am supposed to do in designing this site, I bet I didn’t do them.

As a pre-teen, I got my first chance to code and design as a member of Plugged-In Enterprises.



Coding and design felt like a little bit of magic—typing out a formula or engaging in a set of rituals; perhaps it is a spell of sorts.


[table of contents]