Last week in the studio (CW25-26)

In this regular series, I write about what I worked on during the previous week. I’m still in Germany, away from the studio, and I’m missing my space a lot. There’s a big part of me that loves travelling, but an equal part that craves the familiarity of my home workspace.

Continuing work on Stuff & Nonsense

The Stuff & Nonsense migration from Statamic to Eleventy went far smoother than I’d expected, and everything seems to be working as intended. Every now and again, I spot a visual bug which must have come from the change in markup patterns. But these have been easy and quick to solve.

My SEO seems to have taken a slight knock, but I’d half expected that. I’ll keep an eye on it over the next few weeks, although more for my own satisfaction than any commercial benefit.

Eleventy in a Box

I blogged about Eleventy in a Box in April. After I wrote about how I’d used it to migrate Stuff & Nonsense from Statamic to Eleventy, several people emailed me and asked how they could use it. I hadn’t intended to turn Eleventy in a Box into a product, but it feels like the right time.

So you can buy Eleventy in a Box now. There are two versions to choose from: “Core” and “Pro. Pro is the version I expect most people will want. Pro costs £99 and it contains the core system, plus all the feature packs, including:

• Blog, with index, category, entry, and tags templates
• Case studies, with index, category, and entry templates
• Changelog, ideal for software providers
• FAQs, with index, category, and entry templates
• Portfolio, with index, category, and entry templates
• Services, with index and entry templates
• Team, with index and entry templates
• Testimonials, with index and entry partials

Eleventy in a Box is a one-time purchase; no subscriptions. You get a commercial licence to build one unique website. If you’re an agency who’d like a multi-site license, let’s talk about your options. You get updates for the lifetime of the product, plus 12 months of email support.

Lockrose

Back onto client work, I started working on a website redesign for energy consultants Lockrose. They have an existing set of visual identity guidelines, some marketing assets, and a website which doesn’t reflect their brand and is underperforming.

My issue with the set of colours Lockrose already has is that when you make tints of them, they look very dirty. I started by adjusting their orange and yellow so they’ll provide a wider selection of usable tones.

My second challenge was their chosen typeface. For their workmark and printable assets, Lockrose had chosen Altivo, which is available on Adobe Fonts.

Whoever developed their previous website had valiantly attempted to skirt around the licence issue by leaning on Poppins, which is available free from Google. Poppins is fine and ubiquitous, so after auditioning dozens of free alternatives, I recommended we switch to Commissioner.

Lockrose has its story, and my job is to help them tell it better by organising their content into a narrative. During the week, I outlined their story in a series of wireframes,

Then, on Thursday, I sketched early illustrations.

I’m leaving Germany on Tuesday, but instead of driving home, we’ve decided instead to drive down to northern Italy for a few days. We’re stopping in Lucerne (Switzerland) on the way there, and then Nancy (France) on the way back. Work needs to continue on Lockrose while we’re away, and I’m looking forward to doing it with a view of the Lake.