Tools in practice

A website your team can keep current.

Your team needs to publish without rebuilding the page each time.

Reviewed · By Josh Knight / Knighton Digital

Carry the knowledge through review.Real work provides the material for a draft. Review remains a distinct step before adapting the approved source into a page and supporting formats.Real workDraftReviewPageDocumentPost
Carry the knowledge through review.

Editing access is useful when it matches the work someone needs to do. Adding a project, updating a service and changing a product detail should have a sensible place in the website. A flexible builder helps, but the structure around it matters just as much.

Plan the things that repeat.

We begin with the types of content the business needs: services, projects, products, people or practical information. Shared fields and templates can give those items a consistent home.

WordPress provides the publishing platform. Bricks can connect dynamic content to reusable layouts, while ACSS supports shared styling rules. The combination is useful when the brief calls for an editable website with a considered visual system.

Make consistency easier to keep.

A new page should not depend on someone remembering every font size, gap or button style. Shared classes, templates and design rules carry that detail into the next piece of content.

We apply the KD and FX thinking to the particular build, including the content relationships, responsive behaviour and the editing tasks. The right degree of freedom depends on who will maintain the site and what they need to change.

Include the maintenance conversation.

An editable platform needs an ongoing plan for updates, backups, permissions and the components it depends on. Adding plugins also adds things someone needs to understand and look after.

We assess the functions the business needs, keep the responsibilities clear and check the important paths after changes. The point is a website the team can use with confidence, supported by an agreed care arrangement.

The tools in context

Where each part fits.

Websites with an ongoing publishing job

WordPress

A practical option when the team needs to add articles, services or project stories regularly. We organise the content and editing experience around those repeat tasks.

Worth considering. The flexibility brings ongoing care. Hosting, backups, plugin choices, updates and editing permissions need an owner.

A structured visual build on WordPress

Bricks

Bricks gives us control over page templates, reusable components and dynamic content within a visual WordPress workflow. The aim is a site that can grow without each page becoming a separate design job.

Worth considering. A builder is still a tool for a considered structure. The content model, accessibility, responsive behaviour and handover need to be designed and checked.

Shared design rules for a WordPress build

Automatic.css

Consistent spacing, type, colours and reusable classes make a website easier to extend. ACSS provides a framework for those rules in a compatible WordPress build.

Worth considering. It supports the design system; it does not decide the brand or the content. Someone maintaining the site needs to understand how the shared rules are used.

In the work

Give a product range a usable structure.

The Rural Shop's WordPress work connected categories, product information and promotional material. It illustrates the content and publishing needs we investigate before recommending the build tools for a new project.

Follow the work

Connect the approach to your website.

Sources & further reading

Read around the approach.

Vendor documentation explains the tool. Practitioner references add context to the thinking. Our recommendations and project observations are described separately above.

  • WordPress featuresWordPress.org

    The platform's publishing, permissions and extension capabilities.

  • Dynamic dataBricks Academy

    Connecting stored information to reusable visual templates.

  • Automatic.css documentationAutomatic.css

    The shared styling and layout framework for compatible builds.

  • Fluid responsive designUtopia

    An independent practitioner perspective on fluid typography and spacing, also recorded in our design-craft source library.

Keep exploring

Another part of the picture.

All tools & perspectives

A useful next step

Tell us what
you're working on.

Start with a few rough notes, a website link or one example of what needs attention. You do not need a finished brief.

Let's talk