Welcome to Project Spore, a quiet Hugo starter kit for thoughts that deserve to be gathered, nurtured, and allowed to grow into a living network of knowledge. In this garden, we do not simply publish posts. We cultivate specimens. Each note begins as a small spore: a fleeting idea, an unfinished question, or a fragment worth preserving. Over time, those fragments can grow into a richer ecology of linked thoughts. ...
A digital garden is more than a publishing system. It is an atmosphere. In Project Spore, aesthetics and information are meant to coexist in a way that feels calm, learned, and alive. The typographic duo: Gabriela and Alice Typography does most of the emotional work in a quiet theme, so Project Spore pairs two serif families that balance structure and softness: Gabriela (the structure): used for headings and specimen labels. Its classical character gives the interface a gentle scholarly confidence. Alice (the narrative): used for body copy. It is soft, readable, and well-suited to reflective long-form writing. The botanical plate layout Inspired by illustrated field journals and specimen sheets, the homepage breaks away from the usual centered blog hero. The composition separates image, title, and navigation in a way that feels curated rather than merely arranged. ...
As the sun sets on your digital garden, a different atmosphere takes over. Nighttime Greenhouse is more than a dark theme; it is a gentler reading environment designed for low-light focus. This mode is handled through Project Spore’s theme toggle and dark-mode color tokens in the custom stylesheet, allowing the starter kit to preserve its identity instead of flipping into a generic dark interface. The midnight palette Instead of relying on harsh blacks and neon contrast, Project Spore uses a restrained nocturnal palette to create a greenhouse-at-night mood: ...
This post is a short field guide for personalizing Project Spore without disturbing its quiet, botanical character. Project Spore is meant to feel personal, calm, and alive. Like any living archive, every specimen, label, and accent can be adjusted to reflect the identity of its caretaker. Most first changes can happen in hugo.toml and content/posts/, with deeper visual refinements waiting in the stylesheet and layout partials. 1. Specimen labeling: changing your profile image and title Your homepage acts as the front gate of the garden. Start in hugo.toml, inside the params.profileMode section: ...
In the natural world, taxonomy is the discipline of naming, sorting, and relating living things. In Project Spore, that same logic shapes how notes are stored, grouped, and rediscovered over time. Instead of forcing every note into a rigid folder tree, the starter kit encourages a lighter classification system built on tags. A single specimen can belong to several conversations at once: a scientific thread, a reading log, a reflective essay, or a technical reference. ...