Project Overview
I developed a custom website for a creative writer, focusing on delivering a seamless user experience and powerful content management. I selected Sanity as the headless CMS for its highly customizable studio, giving the writer full autonomy over their content. I paired this with Astro for static site generation, delivering a high-performance website with lightning-fast load times and improved searchability to ensure their work is both beautifully presented and easily discoverable.
Technical Architecture
The project leverages a modern JAMstack architecture built on three core technologies:
Astro Static Site Generator: Chosen for its exceptional performance and developer experience. Astro’s partial hydration approach ensures optimal loading times and SEO performance, making it an ideal choice for a blog or portfolio.
Sanity Headless CMS: Implemented as the content management backbone, Sanity provides a flexible content platform that allows the writer to manage their stories, author information, and site configuration through an intuitive interface.
Vercel Deployment Platform: Vercel provides automatic deployments and global CDN distribution, ensuring the blog loads quickly for readers worldwide.
Custom Sanity Studio
A key component of this project is the custom-configured Sanity Studio, which I tailored to serve as the writer’s creative workspace:
Story Management: Writers can create, edit, and organize their stories using Sanity’s powerful portable text editor, complete with support for custom formatting, embedded media, and structured content blocks.
Visual Customization: I implemented custom schema definitions that allow writers to personalize their blog’s appearance, including color schemes, typography choices, and layout preferences, all without touching code.
Author Profile: A customizable “about” page provides the writer control over their profile picture, bio, and social media connections.
Publishing Workflow: A streamlined publishing process with draft states, scheduling capabilities, and preview functionality gives the writer complete control over when and how their content goes live.
Key Features & Impact
The platform successfully bridges the gap between technical complexity and creative simplicity. The site achieves Google Lighthouse scores of 99 in Performance, 95 in Accessibility, and a perfect 100 in SEO. This technical excellence, combined with Sanity’s content flexibility, delivers a blog that loads quickly, ranks well, and provides an exceptional reading experience on any device.
While platforms like WordPress offer broad, template-based solutions, this bespoke platform delivers superior performance and endless customizability at a fraction of the cost. By avoiding the bloat of pre-made systems, it provides the perfect solution for a creative writer who values granular control and a unique digital presence over a one-size-fits-all approach.