The Royal Docks
Community hub and marketing site for epic London regeneration project
Launched:
- Spring 2019
Project team:
- DNCO
Role:
- Developer
Link:
Although it launched a little later than Digbeth and CO–RE, the Royal Docks project was actually my first foray into Craft CMS with DNCO. Acting as both a marketing vehicle for the extensive Royal Docks regeneration project and a community hub for the residents of Newham in the Docks area, the site features a huge breadth and depth of frequently-updated content which required thoughtful configuration of Craft.
The variety of content necessitated the build-out of a large number of templates, and I made extensive use of CSS Grid to cajole the various modules and components into a sensible set of responsive layouts.
All text and image content on the site is CMS-controlled so a lot of time was invested in breaking down each page into a set of logical fields and repeating blocks. Knowing that real humans were going to need to continually manage the site’s content (and that I would occasionally share an office with said humans) was a keen motivation to ensure that the CMS interfaces I configured made as much sense as possible.
This was a real learning exercise as I tested the limits of Craft, but the results have been very well-received and I’ve been able to take these learnings forward into subsequent projects.
The site continues to evolve and grow and I’m sure it’ll play an important role in the coming months and years as the Royal Docks project gathers pace. I’m continuing to work with DNCO on the project and I hope to be involved for the foreseeable future!
