August 2025
Build for Joy, Not Work
How building out of passion boosts craftsmanship
6 min read
Kasper Svenning
In a world always in a rush, I discovered that taking the time to build something driven by passion didn’t just improve my web development skills but reminded me why I fell in love with creating in the first place.
Back to the ‘90s
It’s 1999. The Matrix just hit theaters, Napster launched, The Sopranos is debuting on HBO, Family Guy and Futurama air for the first time, the Y2K panic has begun, and Britney Spears has just dropped “…Baby One More Time”.
I’m in 6th grade, and my life is all about football, PlayStation, and Counter-Strike. It’s David Beckham, Sony Discman, FIFA 99, MTV, and Ninjas in Pyjamas (legendary Counter-Strike team).
I’m hunched over my family’s shared computer — a beige and bulky beast whose CRT screen swallows the entire desk, leaving barely enough space for the mouse to twitch a few centimeters.
I’m glued to the loading screen of Championship Manager 97/98 — a football manager simulator. Team names stream across the screen in bright, flickering colors: “Swansea,” “Cowdenbeath,” “Leyton Orient,” as I wait for the game to start.
I don’t know it yet, but this is where my passion for software and UI design begins.
Screenshot of the Premier League table in Championship Manager 97/98
A Dream of Pixels
The clunky, raw aesthetics of Championship Manager 97/98 are forever etched into my mind. Its flow, order, and game mechanics turned out to be more addictive than anything I’d experienced before.
This was it. This was what I wanted to do: create thrilling experiences on computer screens for people to enjoy. I would learn, improve, and one day join the mythical creators who built such magic for a living.
Of course, that wasn’t the exact plan I formed on that particular Tuesday afternoon — but it was the journey I slowly embarked upon. I didn’t care much for storylines or 3D graphics, but I was captivated by the on-screen toolbars of StarCraft, Diablo, and Counter-Strike.
I couldn’t wait to be a grown-up and work alongside people with the same mindset, vision, and passion. Surely those people must be the happiest people on the planet.
Oh boy, was I in for a disappointment!
Jira Killed the Web Development Star
Fast forward 26 years and I’m looking at a totally different reality. I’ve been lucky enough to experience building great UIs for amazing products, but when I look around me, I see a world of “good enough”.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t consider myself better than the next Web Designer, but looking at the average website or web app shipped, I can see that they weren’t exactly forged out of excitement.
More websites and web apps are produced now than ever before — but too many seem lifeless, rushed, and forgettable. It's sad to see that web development has turned into fast fashion; mass-produced, trend-chasing, disposable.
So, who is to blame?
First off, constant deadlines and stakeholder pressure often strip Web Designers and Software Engineers of the very joy that drew them in. When you’re always sprinting, there’s no time to experiment, refine, or push boundaries. You start aiming for what’s safe instead of what’s right.
Second, the wave of “vibe coding” tools completely misses the point of creation. The only consolation is that they were never meant for professionals or for those driven to build — only for those who simply want to own some Internet real-estate.
Shipping software has become about shipping something rather than shipping the right thing — and somehow, everyone’s fine with that. Completing ticket is being mistaken for quality, as if the more you build, the better the product must be. “I built three SaaS businesses this weekend!”
Congratulations! You missed the point completely.
Linear's hero section, which has been copied more than anything else in the world
All Work and No Play
In the rush to ship more, creativity didn’t just get left behind — it got run over. Meaningful, unique ideas were replaced by soulless clones. Remember when half the internet had copy-pasted Linear’s landing page?
Yeah, that was rough. But we’re still doing it. The references might have changed, but “great design” today often just means copying whatever’s trending this week.
And sure, style is hard. It takes actual effort to create something original — and if you fail, who’s paying for your little art project? But here’s the thing: if you only build to hit deadlines or keep stakeholders quiet, your skills stagnate. You stop pushing, you stop evolving, and you settle for being competent instead of exceptional.
That’s how we ended up in a creative drought where each website is just the same thing in a slightly different flavor. And that’s not even the worst part.
The real tragedy? An entire generation of Web Designers and Software Engineers may never know the joy of making something truly meaningful — something that solves an actual problem instead of bumping a conversion rate by 0.25%.
And I’m not pretending I’m above it. I’ve built my share of forgettable, cookie-cutter websites. But I might have found a way out.
I just wanna go back, back to 1999
Take a ride to my old neighborhood
I just wanna go back
Sing "Hit me baby, one more time"
Wanna go back, wanna go
Yeah, I just wanna go back
Nike Airs, All That
CD, old Mercedes
Drive 'round listening to Shady like
Never under pressure
Those days, it was so much better
Feelin' cool in my youth, relaxin'
No money, no problem
It was easy back then
“1999”, Charli xcx and Troye Sivan, 2018
Switch on Your Passion
The fix isn’t complicated — but it does require a shift in mindset and a bit of spare time. You have to create something from the ground up. Start with a blank canvas and just style something. Just write something.
I know — side projects aren’t a new idea. But for this to really work, it has to be something with only one agenda: to make you happy. Not something you might spin into a startup. Not something you could sell to Google so you can quit your horrible (but very well-paying) job. No — it should exist purely for fun, and for fun alone.
When you approach it this way, you stop obsessing over features and start focusing on your product’s feel, quality, quirks, and long-term value. Build for yourself, or out of genuine passion — because when you do, you naturally push the details further than any spec sheet demands.
Suddenly, spending two hours perfecting the right hover effect makes sense — because the outcome doesn’t matter. The process is everything. It’s in the constant improvements you make, the repetition, the refinement, and the care you pour into the work because you want to, not because you have to.
Enjoy taking your time. Enjoy the process. Enjoy building.
Japanese craftsman attending to his craft of forging knives
What is Craftsmanship?
If you build long enough out of pure fun, something starts to happen. You stop just “making things” and start crafting them. That’s when passion turns into skill, and skill turns into something deeper: craftsmanship.
Craftsmanship isn’t just about quality — it’s the quiet joy of shaping something with your own hands and mind, and knowing it could only have come from you. It means mastering your skills and knowing your tools and materials inside out, noticing and caring for the small details others might overlook, taking pride in your work rather than cutting corners for speed, and consistently producing results that meet your own high standards.
When you work out of passion, you enter a flow state where time disappears. That joy is amplified when you step back and see the finished work, knowing it reflects your values and care.
Make Something Worth Making
Build something out of joy, because when you care, you’ll never settle — and your craftsmanship will grow in ways no deadline ever could.
Right now, I’m juggling my Web Development Engine project, Nordcraft. It’s incredible, but building Nordcraft with Nordcraft (yes, we do that) is a challenge: real users need guidance, best practices matter, and features have to make sense. It’s challenging and it’s rewarding.
But still, nothing beats building something just for fun — something with no business value at all. Sure, it could be repurposed for marketing, but that’s not the point. The point is that it’s real, it’s genuine, and it’s fun.
So what am I building?
I’m going back to the ’90s. Recreating my favorite childhood PC game Championship Manager 97/98 with its clunky buttons, quirky misalignments, and basic animations — to chase the feelings I had back then. I can feel it working already. The closer I get to nailing the font weight, spacing, and subtle movements, the more that old smile comes back.
Try it here:
CM9798
Football news and standings — Championship Manager 97/98 style!
It's work in progress, which it will be forever.
Next up? A Casio G-SHOCK simulator? Or a Teletext website? Or a Tamagotchi?
Because when you build purely for fun, you rediscover the spark that first pulled you into creation — the same thrill I felt staring at that clunky CRT in 1999. It’s in that joy, curiosity, patience, and obsession with tiny details that the foundation of true craftsmanship is laid. This is where passion stops being a hobby and starts shaping the work only you could make. That’s where real craft begins.
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