BUILD NOTE 001
Not a blog.
The publishing layer on sw11software.co.uk is being built as a proper content system from the beginning — because the things we publish should feel as considered as the software around them.
A conventional company blog would be easy: a title, a date, a rectangle of text and a list of older rectangles underneath it. That is not what we want this part of SW11 to become.
Works can be dispatches, build notes, field notes, experiments or release stories. They can belong to projects, carry artwork, expose structured metadata and surface differently across the site without changing the content itself.
SYSTEM / CONTENT MODEL
Content as data.
The first engine keeps publishing metadata separate from the viewer. A work has a slug, type, status, project, tags, dates, artwork, body source and table-of-contents data. The homepage and Works library consume the same registry.
Publishing a new piece should mean adding a new piece, not hand-editing four different landing-page sections and hoping they stay in sync.
VIEWER / READING MODE
The reader comes first.
The surrounding company site can be playful. The reader is deliberately calmer. It includes a persistent reading-progress indicator, article metadata, sticky contents navigation on larger screens, strong long-form typography and clear related context.
The fun belongs around the reading experience. The reading experience itself should be excellent.
Reading progress is calculated from the current document in the browser. It does not require a cookie or persistent browser storage.
NEXT / PUBLISHING
Where this goes.
The foundation is intentionally broader than the first demonstration item. Artwork, projects and content types are already part of the schema, giving SW11 somewhere sensible to publish technical writing, ZeRaLD stories, event notes, experiments and longer essays without turning the homepage into a conventional news feed.
Later stages can add authoring tools, richer media blocks, series, revisions, feeds and deeper discovery mechanics without replacing the core reader.