Marie is family. My niece, and above all my friend.
Building her website felt different from any other project. Not because the brief was complicated, but because I know her. Marie wanted pastel shades from the start, that was settled immediately. I already had a retro design in mind and adapted it around her colours: as sweet as candy at first glance, but not entirely so on closer inspection.
That is exactly what we built: a blog that looks sweet and inviting at first sight, with room for whoever stays to read to go a little deeper. Just like Marie herself.
It was an honour to build something for someone so close to me. Not every project gets that kind of space.
What lies behind those pastel shades?
Under those soft colours on marieboddaert.nl there is quite a lot of technology. A brief explanation for anyone who is not a developer.
A CMS, or: a button instead of calling me
CMS stands for Content Management System. Boring name, handy thing. It means Marie can publish new stories whenever she wants, without needing to call me or take a programming course. She types her story, clicks publish, and that is that.
Slugs, or: a clean name for every page
A slug is the part of the link after the last slash. Instead of a web address full of strange letters and numbers, every story gets a readable name. Not marieboddaert.nl/post-3829x, but for example marieboddaert.nl/about-me. Nice for readers, and nice for Google.
SEO, or: making sure Google can find you
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In plain language: making sure that when someone googles something Marie's blog covers, her site actually comes up. No magic, just doing a lot of small things right: clear titles, fast loading times, and texts that both people and Google understand.
The result: a website that looks calm and soft, but under the hood is put together with just as much thought as any other project I build.
Visit Marie's website: marieboddaert.nl