WordPress
The Playbook
A sports editorial publication with a custom WordPress theme, a writer-login publishing flow, and a migration onto the client's own hosting.
- Client
- The Playbook
- Year
- 2026
- Role
- Design & build
- Scope
- Custom theme · Editorial architecture · Front-end publishing · Migration · Caching
The brief
A sports publication needed to run like a newsroom, not a blog. Several sections with their own identities, a stable of writers who had to file without ever seeing the WordPress admin, and article pages that could carry art direction rather than a stock template.
What I built
A custom editorial theme built from scratch. A multi-section taxonomy — Football, Combat Sports and their sub-sections — with archives that read as separate desks rather than filtered lists. A front-end submission flow so a logged-in writer drafts, edits and files an article without touching the admin. Full-bleed, art-directed article heroes, and search that actually returns the right piece.
The site was then migrated onto the client's own Hostinger production hosting and put behind LiteSpeed cache, with the cache rules set rather than left at defaults.
Result
The publication now runs on its own hosting, publishes through its own writers, and no longer needs a developer in the loop to get an article out.