Built from scratch to give Word Study an autonomous, self-service content platform that eliminates developer dependencies for routine executive and event updates.
Build Word Study a real platform from zero — not patch an existing site — that could grow from a simple static presence into something the unit could run itself, without ever needing a rebuild or a developer on standby for routine changes.
Built the entire platform from scratch on the Next.js App Router, with a Tailwind CSS design system and Framer Motion for scroll-based micro-interactions — the public pages, navigation, and initial hardcoded executive/sub-unit UI all originated here.
Re-architected the static leadership data into a Sanity headless CMS, replacing hardcoded arrays with a single relational source of truth so executive profiles can't drift out of date across pages.
Engineered a Time-Aware Conference Engine that auto-transitions events from upcoming to past based on real dates, a 3-tier media fallback system (CMS image → auto-extracted YouTube thumbnail → CSS gradient fallback) for messages and conferences, and "Phantom Routing" — a server-side check that strips empty nav categories before the page ever renders.
Added GA4 tracking and a hybrid static/dynamic sitemap built specifically to avoid the serverless crashes that come from using fs.readdir on Vercel, plus force-dynamic cache-busting so CMS edits go live instantly without a full redeploy.
Word Study wasn't handed an existing site to improve — it was built solo from an empty repo through six versions, ending as a self-service platform that keeps working even when content is incomplete or a category is empty.
The unit can now add or edit executives, conferences, and messages directly, with zero code changes and no rebuild required — updates go live immediately. The fallback architecture means missing content degrades gracefully instead of breaking the page, and the conference logic and empty-category nav filtering both remove recurring manual upkeep that would otherwise fall on someone every year.
A deliberately scoped backend foundation — authentication, server-verified payments, and Row Level Security — engineered for a clean client handoff.