Cumulus Studio — Custom Website & CMS

A fully custom PHP-built website and bespoke CMS — custom router, flat-file JSON storage, pre-rendered static HTML, WCAG 2.2 AA, and a comprehensive SEO rebuild.

01. The Challenge

Cumulus Studio is an award-winning Hobart architecture and design firm. Their existing Wix site had accumulated significant technical debt: 235+ images with missing alt text, missing H1 headings across key pages, no meta descriptions, and a mobile experience degraded by heavy imagery and poor structure. The platform was restrictive, and the site no longer reflected the quality of their work.

02. The Solution

I built a completely custom website from scratch — no WordPress, no CMS platform, no drag-and-drop builder. The architecture is a custom PHP router delivering pre-rendered static HTML pages, with a bespoke content management admin area.

• Custom PHP router — determines the route, loads the correct header variant, assembles the final response without a framework
• Flat-file JSON storage — no database required; content stored in structured JSON files per content type
• Pre-rendered static HTML — when content is saved, PHP rebuilds affected static pages automatically
• Custom admin CMS — bcrypt-authenticated, CSRF-protected, with drag-and-drop reorder and automatic thumbnail generation
• WCAG 2.2 Level AA compliance from day one — descriptive alt text, correct heading hierarchy, skip links, keyboard navigation
• Full SEO foundation: unique H1, descriptive meta descriptions, sitemap, internal linking strategy

03. The Outcome

A fast, fully custom website that Cumulus can manage independently — adding projects, team members, and news items via a clean admin interface — with the accessibility, SEO, and performance standards the Wix site couldn't provide.