9 Projects You Can Do to Become a Front-End Master
Introduction
Learning new ideas, languages, and frameworks is essential in this field, regardless of your level of programming experience, if you want to keep up with the industry's quick advancements.
Consider React, which Facebook only recently made open-source. Since then, it has become the tool of choice for JavaScript developers all around the world.
Of course, Vue and Angular also have their fair share of supporters. Then there are frameworks like Next.js or Nuxt.js that are globally applicable and Svelte. Additionally, Gatsby, Gridsome, and Quasar also, also, also
In addition to doing your study with good, old JS, if you want to stand out as a skilled JavaScript developer, you should at least have some expertise with various frameworks and libraries.
I've gathered nine different projects to help you become a front-end guru, each with a unique theme and a different JavaScript framework or library as a tech stack you may create and add to your portfolio. Remember that making things yourself will assist you more than anything else, so go ahead, develop your thinking skills, and make this happen.
Build a Movie-Search App Using React (With Hooks)
The first thing you could do is use React to create a movie search app. An illustration of the finished app may be seen below:
What you’ll learn
In building this application, you’ll improve your React skills using the relatively new Hooks API. The example project makes use of React components, many hooks, an external API, and, of course, some styling via CSS.
Tech stack and features
- React with hooks
- create-react-app
- JSX
- CSS
Without using any classes, this projects gives you a perfect entry point into functional React and will definitely help you in 2022.
You can find the example project here. Follow along with the tutorial, or give it your own flavor.
Build a Chat App With Vue
Another great project for you is to build a chat app using my favorite JavaScript library: VueJS.
The app will look something like this:
What you’ll learn
Following this tutorial, you’ll learn how to set up a Vue app from scratch — creating components, handling states, creating routes, connecting to a third-party service, and even handling authentication.
Tech stack and features
- Vue
- Vuex
- Vue Router
- Vue CLI
- Pusher
- CSS
This is really a great project to get started with Vue — or to improve your existing skills — to tackle development in 2022.
You can find the tutorial right here.
Build a Beautiful Weather App With Angular 8
This example will help you build a beautiful weather app using Google’s Angular 8:
What you’ll learn
This project will teach you valuable skills while creating an application from scratch — starting with design over development and going all the way to a production-ready deployment.
Tech stack and features
- Angular 8
- Firebase
- Server-side rendering
- CSS with Grid Layout and Flexbox
- Mobile friendly and responsive
- Dark mode
- Beautiful UI
What I really, really like about this comprehensive project is you don’t learn things in isolation. Instead, you learn the whole development process — from the design to the final deployment.
You should really do this one.
Build a To-Do App With Svelte
Svelte if kind of the new kid on the block — at least compared to React, Vue, and Angular. But nonetheless, it’s one of the hotties for 2022.
OK, to-do apps aren’t necessarily the hottest topic out there, but this will really help you to sharpen you Svelte skills. It’ll look like this:
What you’ll learn
This tutorial will show you how to make an app using Svelte 3, from start to finish. It makes use of components, styling, and event handlers
Tech stack and features
- Svelte 3
- Components
- Styling via CSS
- ES 6 syntax
There aren’t that many good Svelte starter projects out there, so I found this one to be kind of good to start with.
And, who knows, maybe you’ll be the one creating another, more comprehensive Svelte tutorial that’ll be presented in the next year’s version of this post?
Build an E-Commerce Shopping Cart With Next.js
Next.js is the most popular framework for creating React applications that support server-side rendering out of the box.
This project will show you how to build an e-commerce shopping cart that looks like this:
What you’ll learn
In this project, you’ll learn how to set up a Next.js development environment — creating new pages and components, fetching data, and styling and deploying a Next application.
Tech stack and features
- Next.js
- Components and pages
- Data fetching
- Styling
- Deployment
- SSR and SPA
It’s always great to have a real-world example, such as an e-commerce showcase, to learn something new. You can find the tutorial here.
Build a Full-Blown Multilanguage Blog Website With Nuxt.js
Nuxt.js is to Vue what Next.js is to React: a great framework to combine the power of server-side rendering and single-page applications.
The final app that you could create will look like this:
What you’ll learn
This example project will teach you how to build a full-blown website using Nuxt.js — from the initial setup to the final deployment.
It makes use of many of the cool features Nuxt has to offer, like pages and components as well as styling with SCSS.
Tech stack and features
- Nuxt.js
- Components and pages
- Storyblok module
- Mixins
- Vuex for state management
- SCSS for styling
- Nuxt middlewares
This is a really cool project for you and covers many of the great features of Nuxt.js. I personally love working with Nuxt, so you should really try this one out as it will also make you a better Vue developer.
Build a Blog With Gatsby
Gatsby is a great static-site generator that uses React and GraphQL under the hood. This is the result of this project:
What you’ll learn
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to leverage Gatsby to build an outstanding blog that you use for writing your own articles while making use of React and GraphQL.
Tech stack and eatures
- Gatsby
- React
- GraphQL
- Plugins and themes
- MDX/Markdown
- Bootstrap CSS
- Templates
If you ever wanted to start a blog, this is a great example for how to do so by leveraging React and GraphQL.
I’m not saying that WordPress always is a bad choice, but with Gatsby, you can create highly performant sites while using React — which is an awesome combination.
Build a Blog With Gridsome
Gridsome is to Vue … OK, we already had that with Next/Nuxt.
But the same is true for Gridsome and Gatsby. Both use GraphQL as a data layer, but Gridsome makes use of VueJS. It also is an awesome static-site generator that’ll help you create great blogs:
What you’ll learn
This project will teach you how to build a simple blog to get started with Gridsome, GraphQL, and Markdown.
It also covers how to deploy the application via Netlify.
Tech stack and features
- Gridsome
- Vue
- GraphQL
- Markdown
- Netlify
This, for sure, isn’t the most comprehensive tutorial, but it does cover the basic concepts of Gridsome and Markdown and could be a good starting point.
Build a SoundCloud-like Audio-Player App With Quasar
Quasar is another Vue framework that can also be used to build mobile applications.
In this project, you’ll create an audio-player app like this:
What you’ll learn
While the other projects focus mainly on web applications, this one will show you how to create a mobile app using Vue via the Quasar framework.
You should already have a working Cordova setup with Android Studio/Xcode configured. If not, there is a link in the tutorial to the Quasar website, where they show you how to set this up.
Tech stack and features
- Quasar
- Vue
- Cordova
- WaveSurfer
- UI Components
A small project that shows the power of Quasar for building mobile apps.
Conclusion
In this article, I showed you nine projects that you can build, each focusing on another JavaScript framework or library.
Now the choice is all yours: Will you try something new by using a framework you haven’t used before? Or do you want to strengthen your skills by doing a project for a technology you already have some knowledge of? Or will you rely on your favorite framework/library and do all the projects in 2022 with it?