Client: Mid-sized product design and illustration studio
Role: Project Manager • Lead Developer • Editorial Workflow Enabler
Timeline: ~1 month
Stack: Custom WordPress Theme, CMS Optimization, Lightweight Frontend
🚨 The Problem
The studio’s web platform was dragging behind its creative output:
- Outdated WordPress setup with a brittle legacy theme
- No structured content management—every update required developer involvement
- Poor performance, sluggish UX, and mounting editorial bottlenecks
- The system wasn’t built to scale with the business—or the team’s ideas
Creative energy was high. Tech support morale? Not so much.
🧠 My Role
I led a full overhaul of the studio’s web platform—streamlining performance, optimizing the CMS, and handing power back to the editorial team.
🔧 What I Delivered
- Ran discovery interviews with team members to align the build with real publishing workflows
- Replaced the legacy site with a custom lightweight WordPress build, designed for speed and simplicity
- Built the CMS around low-maintenance, editor-first workflows—no more dev bottlenecks
- Prioritized responsiveness and usability for both admins and visitors
- Delivered documentation and trained internal staff to manage everything independently
📈 Business Results
- 30% faster site performance, improving UX, load times, and SEO visibility
- +15% traffic growth within a month, contributing directly to new client interest and sales
- 80% reduction in editorial effort needed to publish and update content
- Delivered a future-ready, scalable CMS aligned with both creative needs and growth plans
- Gave the team full publishing autonomy, turning the site into a tool—not a chore
* * *
Want to stop calling a dev every time you update a sentence?
Let’s make your site work for your team.
Start your editorial glow-up → ✍️