CASE STUDY/01·ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE AGENCYSHIPPED 2026 Q1 · MASTHEAD v4.2
“A sister brand that reads nothing like us, on the same chassis.”
★ FULL MASTHEAD BUILDAAL's editorial sister brand. Different voice, palette, and buyer — same Masthead platform as this site. All four modules: Design, CMS, AEO, Evolve.
TIME TO LAUNCH6 Weeks
BEACON SCORE95/100
EDITORIAL CADENCEMonthly
CORE WEB VITALSPassing
CONTENT STAFF3 Editorial
02 · THE BRIEFProve Masthead builds from scratch.
A sister-brand site that reads like a different company — warmer, slower, more editorial — on the same Masthead chassis as the parent. It had to prove “built from scratch” isn't marketing language, and that Masthead holds a voice far from AAL's flat-dark engineering look.
03 · SCOPEDesign✓ INCLUDED
CMS✓ INCLUDED
AEO✓ INCLUDED
Evolve◐ ACTIVE
04 · HOW IT SHIPPED
Six weeks. Four phases.
01 · AUDITWEEK 0
Map the editorial gap.
Sat with the AIA editorial team. Cataloged 127 pieces across 3 formats, documented the voice (warmer, slower, essayistic), and baselined the old WordPress site at 38/100.
02 · WIREWEEKS 1–3
Design + CMS shipped in parallel.
Warm off-white (#F4EEE3), burnt-orange accents, Playfair-italic type. Custom Sanity models for essays, client work, and archives. Built for AI search from day one: schema, llms.txt, author markup.
03 · MIGRATEWEEKS 4–5
127 pieces ported. Zero broken links.
A migration script pulled WordPress exports into Sanity, re-keyed authors, and preserved canonical URLs via redirect map. Editorial team trained in a single 90-minute session.
04 · EVOLVEWEEK 6 → ONGOING
Ship. Compound.
Live on week 6. Q2 Evolve retainer added a Writing archive template, AI-search coverage on every piece, and a performance budget enforced in CI. Beacon score climbed from 38 to 95 in 90 days.
01 · AUDITWEEK 0
Map the editorial gap.
Sat with the AIA editorial team. Cataloged 127 pieces across 3 formats, documented the voice (warmer, slower, essayistic), and baselined the old WordPress site at 38/100.
02 · WIREWEEKS 1–3
Design + CMS shipped in parallel.
Warm off-white (#F4EEE3), burnt-orange accents, Playfair-italic type. Custom Sanity models for essays, client work, and archives. Built for AI search from day one: schema, llms.txt, author markup.
03 · MIGRATEWEEKS 4–5
127 pieces ported. Zero broken links.
A migration script pulled WordPress exports into Sanity, re-keyed authors, and preserved canonical URLs via redirect map. Editorial team trained in a single 90-minute session.
04 · EVOLVEWEEK 6 → ONGOING
Ship. Compound.
Live on week 6. Q2 Evolve retainer added a Writing archive template, AI-search coverage on every piece, and a performance budget enforced in CI. Beacon score climbed from 38 to 95 in 90 days.
CLIENT QUOTE“Eighteen months looking for a platform that could hold our voice without forcing us into templates. Six weeks with AAL and we had a site that reads like us — with editorial tooling that would've been a retainer anywhere else.”
AIA
Editorial Director
ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE AGENCY
BUILT WITHNext.js 15Sanity CMSVercelPlayfair DisplayTailwind CSSFramer Motion
05 · WANT A BUILD LIKE THIS?Brief your own build from scratch.
Tell us what you publish and what's broken about the current platform. If it fits Masthead, we come back with a proposal within 24 hours.
TYPICAL BUILD6–12 weeks
OPEN SLOTS · Q32 of 4