cepezed

Cepezed had an existing website in Craft CMS, but the technical base was far from solid. The site had been built by someone with little knowledge of Craft CMS, resulting in a series of unfortunate technical choices. Strange content structures, inconsistent template logic, unnecessarily complex solutions to simple problems. The codebase was difficult to maintain and vulnerable to problems with updates.

At the same time, Cepezed had an ambitious digital desire. A portfolio platform that did justice to their international reputation and their work. Large, breathtaking project photography. Architectural drawings and sketches that show the depth of their design process. A fluid, fast-paced experience that appeals to visitors from all over the world. And a filtering system that allows visitors to quickly find the right project.

The challenge for PixelDeluxe: remediate the technical base without disrupting the ongoing website, and then build on to a platform that is truly worthy of Cepezed.

We started with a thorough technical audit of the existing installation. Which template structures do not work, which content models are built illogically, where are the vulnerabilities? Based on that audit, we made a clear plan for remediation.

We then migrated the website to a newer version of Craft CMS with a remediated codebase. Templates were rewritten, content models were streamlined and the overall architecture of the Craft CMS installation was built according to the right principles. The result: a solid, maintainable base that grows along with Cepezed's ambitions.

For the user experience, we paid close attention to fluidity and speed. Via Blitz caching, the website loads at lightning speed, even on pages with large amounts of images. Page transitions are fluid and typographic sophistication has been kept intact.

Project filtering is a central part of the portfolio. Visitors can search and filter Cepezed's projects by various parameters to quickly find the project relevant to their situation. Whether that is a specific building type, a particular period or a specific design approach.

For Cepezed's 50th anniversary, we built a separate multisite: the Wunderkammer. A digital exhibition in which all Cepezed employees contributed a photo and a story. A personal and visually strong tribute to fifty years of architecture, built on the same Craft CMS installation as the main site.

Taking over a website from another developer is always a challenge. You take over not only the code but also all the choices made before that. Sometimes those choices are good, sometimes they are not.

At Cepezed, the situation was clear. The previous developer had a lot of knowledge, but little of Craft CMS specifically, and this was visible throughout the build. Not one big problem but a succession of small suboptimal choices that together created a fragile and poorly maintainable base.

We remediated that base step by step without disrupting the ongoing website. This requires patience, precision and a good understanding of what is and what needs to be. It is less spectacular than a new build but at least as valuable.

Craft CMS as a base, migrated to a newer version with fully remediated codebase. Tailwind CSS for front-end styling. Blitz for static caching and maximum loading speed for image-rich pages. SEOmatic for full technical SEO in two languages. Sherlock for continuous security monitoring. Multisite configuration for the anniversary Wunderkammer. Bilingual content structure in Dutch and English. Comprehensive project filtering on multiple parameters.

Cepezed has a portfolio platform that does justice to their international reputation. Large project photography, architectural drawings and sketches are presented on a fast, visually sophisticated website that appeals to visitors from all over the world.

The technical base is solid and maintainable. Updates run smoothly, new functionalities can easily be added and Cepezed's team manages the content independently via Craft CMS.

An acquisition is a diagnosis. Before you can improve something, you need to understand what is there and why it has become the way it is. At Cepezed, we learned the importance of taking that diagnostic phase seriously. Don't start building immediately but first understand, analyse and plan.

That also helped us in building the Wunderkammer. An anniversary project with dozens of employees delivering content requires a well thought-out content structure. We could only establish that structure properly because we knew the Craft CMS installation inside out by now.