One platform to launch many sites.
Our role
Background
Nashville-based Savage Ventures invests in, acquires, and operates high-growth, digital-first businesses. Their portfolio includes many media properties, like VICE, PopCulture.com, ComicBook.com, American Songwriter, and Outdoors.
During a busy year of scaling its digital media business, Savage partnered with Alley to migrate several of their websites, starting with VICE and VICE Video, to WordPress VIP on a multisite environment. Simultaneously, Savage and Alley collaborated to build a flexible design system that became the foundation for future site launches and partnerships. This combined effort allows staff to work on multiple sites via one login. Team members leverage an array of reusable components as they edit any site, which provides them with flexibility while retaining the site’s overall look and feel.
The end result is a common platform upon which Savage Ventures can efficiently launch and scale new web properties.
Challenges
At the outset of our work, VICE was hosted on a custom technology stack. That setup wasn’t designed for scalability, efficiency, or for managing multiple media properties under a unified platform, hindering Savage’s acquisition and partnership-focused business model.
Additional challenges included:
- Expiring CMS Support: The working team only had a three-month window of time to complete the VICE migration to WordPress before the existing CMS would be shut down, necessitating a quick and efficient transition.
- Multilingual Complexity: VICE operates in 19 different languages with a very complex sitemap, significantly complicating content management and navigation structure.
- Inherited Technical Debt: In this project, we were not launching new sites from scratch. This means we inherited technical debt from different systems and data structures, including one homegrown CMS, which added complexity during migration.
- Legacy Content Management: Content from the legacy system had to be accurately mapped to ensure it loaded correctly post-migration.
- Shared Design System: Savage lacked a comprehensive design system with reusable components, customizable style guides, and dynamic layouts. This would be necessary to launch future sites efficiently.
Solutions
We developed a robust, extensible platform tailored to Savage’s needs, with a focus on scalability and rapid site deployment. Savage is currently leveraging this platform on its own site and plans to migrate its own and new partner websites to take advantage of the scale and features. These include:
Reusable Features and Design Patterns
We built the platform using a collection of distinct features and custom blocks that could be enabled and configured per site. The platform facilitates this site-level customization, allowing the sites to look and behave differently, all while maintaining code efficiency and consistency.
Custom Multilingual Support
Rather than relying on heavy plugins, we built a lightweight multilingual solution. The system detects the browser’s language, serves localized content, and stores user preferences with cookies. We also translated key interface strings, such as “The Latest,” into 19 languages and leveraged ElasticSearch for efficient multilingual content hubs.
Efficient Migration
For VICE, we used APIs to extract and migrate data efficiently, bypassing the challenges of importing and parsing an extremely large database. For legacy video content, we mapped video IDs between the old and new systems to ensure seamless functionality on the new platform.
Training and Knowledge Sharing
We leveraged a train-the-trainer model to support Savage’s rapid adoption of the new platform as sites and users join the Savage portfolio.
Before
After
After building the design framework for VICE.com, we expanded and refined the system to launch ComicBook.com and PopCulture.com. Using a shared template focused on flexibility and brand consistency, we developed both sites quickly while giving each their distinct look and feel. Key features of the design system include:
Reusable Components
We built a library of proprietary and modular design elements and block patterns, making it easy to adjust layouts for different brands while keeping a consistent visual style.
Customizable Style Guides
Each site has its own custom style guide with unique typography and color schemes, allowing every brand to have its own personality while adhering to the overall system.
Dynamic Layouts
Flexible homepage and content page designs let publishers highlight stories, feature important content, and adjust layouts as editorial needs change.
Results
Our work with Savage was guided by our singular focus on supporting publishers and the publishing ecosystem. The partnership with Savage continues to expand as Savage looks to acquire and build additional partnerships in the digital publishing space.
After VICE, the comicbook.com and popculure.com launches each went live within two months, a very short turnaround that reflects the strength of the collaboration, technology stack, and the rapid adoption of users. Beyond facilitating growth, the platform serves Savage’s staff in that publishing content is more efficient. Additionally, end users now enjoy greater site speed, which is visible in improved Google Lighthouse metrics.
Reusing and expanding the design system we initially crafted for VICE cut down development time for ComicBook.com and PopCulture.com while keeping their designs unique and functional. Now, Savage Ventures and Alley can continue to join forces and more quickly and seamlessly onboard new sites and launch new features.
