Discovery & Planning

• Client Workshop: We began with a collaborative session to understand Maria João’s goals, brand evolution, and audience needs.
• Site Audit: We evaluated the existing homepage, news archive, typography, color usage, and script performance to identify technical debt and design inconsistencies.

Homepage Redesign

• Visual Refresh: Introduced a more contemporary color palette (deep burgundy accents against clean white backgrounds) and updated typography for improved readability.
• Layout Update: Redesigned the hero section with a full-bleed background image and concise call-to-action buttons guiding visitors to the latest articles and books.
• Interactive Elements: Added a subtle parallax scroll effect and custom “typewriter” script for highlighting quotes, giving the page kinetic energy without compromising load times.

News Section Modernization

• Improved Navigation: Reorganized the “Notícias” page into filterable categories (e.g., Artigo, Crónica) so readers can quickly find specific content types.
• Card-Based Layout: Converted the linear list into responsive content cards, each displaying featured image, title, excerpt, and publication date—enhancing scanability.
• Load More Functionality: Implemented a custom AJAX-based “Load More” button to fetch additional posts without a full page refresh, creating a smoother browsing experience.

Site-Wide Style Updates

• Consistent Components: Standardized buttons, links, and form fields with shared CSS classes to ensure uniform hover states, padding, and border radii.
• Responsive Enhancements: Refined breakpoints and flex/grid layouts so the site looks polished on mobile, tablet, and desktop screens.
• Accessibility Improvements: Increased color contrast ratios, added focus outlines for keyboard navigation, and ensured semantic HTML structure across templates.