Last week I took took some time and migrated my blog from Jigsaw to Astro using the Astro Paper starter theme. Overall, it was a great experience and I’m pleased with how my updated blog is shaping up.
Why I Chose Astro Paper
I opted for Astro Paper as the foundations for my new Astro blog for a few key reasons:
- It’s designed specifically for longform blog content with built-in markdown optimizations
- Provides a clean, minimal aesthetic for focusing on writing
- Easy to build on incrementally by modifying components
The starter theme gave me a robust framework optimized for blogging to build on top of.
Customizing the Design System
While I appreciated Astro Paper’s clean look, I still wanted to adapt the colors, fonts, and other styling to better suit my personal taste. Thankfully, Astro Paper makes it straightforward to customize the theme’s design system.
I tweaked variables like:
- Primary and accent colors
- Font families and sizes
- Link styles
- Code block styling
- Dark/light mode colors
Dynamic OG Images
One Astro Paper feature I really love is the ability to auto-generate dynamic Open Graph social images for each blog post based on the title. If you don’t explicitly set OG image metadata, it will create a simple, clean image with the formatted title.
This is perfect for quickly giving every post a unique, consistent image for social sharing. The auto-generated OG images even come in multiple color versions. It’s a fantastic addition for both readers and SEO.
Final Impressions
Migrating to Astro Paper gave my blog a fresh new look while retaining the focus on longform technical content. Between the reading optimizations, stylish minimal design, and SEO enhancements like OG images, I’m happy with how my blog is turning out.
Stay tuned as I keep sharing my insights, experiences, and some hopefully useful content on this revamped platform.