※ This post has been restored from an old post written during the Jekyll era.

GitHub Pages doesn't necessarily have to be hosted with Jekyll. You can also store traditional HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files in the Repository, and hosting will work fine. In that case, however, you have to design every page yourself, and it requires an aesthetic sense that goes beyond mere coding. Design can, depending on the situation, require even more advanced knowledge and meticulous work than coding.

Fortunately, using a Jekyll-based theme can solve this problem.

You can download Jekyll themes or check out demo pages at the sites below. They're basically free, though for some themes you can pay for an upgraded version.

• Jekyll Themes
• Free Jekyll Themes
• Jekyllrc

There are many other sites out there if you look. Let's check out Jekyll Themes as an example.

There are this many themes ready to choose from. Since each theme has a suitable use case, be sure to check the features it offers. Each theme reflects only the designer's own individual intent and values, so make sure the direction of the theme matches the blog you want.

Some themes are suited for a blog, and some are suited for a portfolio.

The theme I used back in my Jekyll days was Moon Theme. I liked it for its clean yet comfortable feel. Most themes provide a hands-on demo page like the one above, so using it can help you choose a theme.

Once you've chosen the theme you want, proceed with the clone step. Almost every theme provides a corresponding Repository URL. To clone it, you need to know the theme Repository's URL. You can find the URL as follows.

Cloning is the process of copying a public GitHub Repository to your local PC.

You can find the URL from the Repository's address, or as shown in the picture, by clicking the Code button.

Open Git Bash in the folder where you want to copy the project. Enter the following command in the console.

git clone {Theme URL} {username}.github.io

This command copies the source from the given URL into a folder named {username}.github.io at the destination path. Once the command runs successfully, a {username}.github.io folder will be created at the destination path, and you can check out the source directly.

However, at this point you've only pulled down the source — you haven't yet linked it to the Repository you created. Let's proceed with the following steps to link them.

1. Go into the cloned project folder and open Git Bash.
2. Run the command git remote set-url origin https://github.com:{username}/{username}.github.io.git.
3. Record the changes with git push.

After finishing this process, if you check your GitHub Repository, you'll see that, unlike its previously empty state, the theme's source files are now present.

Since the build takes a bit of time (~ 1 minute), wait a moment and then visit https://{username}.github.io. If the theme is applied, you've succeeded. Of course, since no customization has been done yet, it won't look much different from the demo page. From here on, you can write posts and decorate your blog as you like.