Iron Blosam Site Overhaul

Modernized for WordPress
A photo of the Iron Blosam ski and summer resort lodge in the mountains at Snowbird
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Rebuilding a website for content control

The Challenge

The original site was an impressively custom-coded, multipage project with a vast amount of content, ranging from accommodation listings and image carousels to custom forms and styled tables. Unfortunately, managing content required diving into the codebase, making simple updates tedious or downright impossible for non-technical users.


The site also lacked any amount responsive design, making it difficult to navigate on mobile devices. This made accessibility and usability a major issue in today’s mobile-first world.


I was tasked with rebuilding this website from the ground up so simple changes could be handled by a CMS, with additional requirements to preserve the design and make future updates easier for the Iron Blosam team.

My Solution

I rebuilt the site from the ground up on WordPress, developing a customized architecture that matched the original look and feel while offering far greater flexibility and content control. Here are a few of my key contributions to this effort:

  • Translated all existing page designs into dozens of new templates and reusable blocks.
  • Created custom post types, fields, and admin UI to make content edits and data entry more intuitive for non-technical website admins.
  • Built a mega menu with jQuery and added image carousels and info cards for engaging visuals.
  • Converted complex textual content into styled HTML tables.
  • Remediated sitewide accessibility concerns to align them with WCAG 2.1 standards.
  • Implemented a sitewide search and integrated dozens of custom forms.
  • Color-matched all page elements and optimized fonts, icons, and images to improve speed and performance.
  • Provided multiple rounds of onboarding and training to help the client's team members take more ownership of the site going forward.

A major focus of the rebuild was mobile optimization and to improve all-around accessibility. The original site wasn’t responsive, which led to poor usability on phones and tablets. I redesigned every layout, menu, and interaction to scale fluidly and perform beautifully across all screen sizes.

Results & Impact

The new build is faithful to the original site's look and feel while being far easier to use on mobile devices. With everything now managed through the WordPress panel, the client can add, edit, and remove content independently without needing to touch source code. This makes the site a breeze to maintain in the long run.

Key Takeaways

I'm impressed with everything I accomplished and learned during my work on this project:

  • A successful rebuild doesn’t just replicate. It should improve upon the original foundation.
  • User-focused admin workflows on the back-end are just as important as front-end design.
  • If given enough thoughtful consideration, WordPress can handle complex sites while still being user-friendly for people who don't want to risk modifying any code.
  • Small touches like consistent theming, search, and accessibility add impactful, long-term value in an instant.
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