Vitaly Friedman at JAMstack Conf 2019 London

You’ve been there: big bang redesigns are usually a very, very bad idea. Redesigning and rebuilding an existing website from scratch is risky and unpredictable, and in many cases the level of complexity is highly underrated and underestimated. In mid-2016, Smashing Magazine has decided to make a big switch from the existing WordPress setup to an entirely new design, entirely new architecture (JAM Stack) and an entirely new, GitHub-based, editorial workflow. In this talk, Vitaly Friedman, co-founder and creative lead of Smashing Magazine, will share some of the insights into Smashing Magazine’s Relaunch — with decisions made, failures, successes and lessons learned along the way. You’ll learn which challenges the transition from WordPress to a Netlify setup posed, how the team solved them and how things have evolved over years, and how switching a seemingly simple system with a job board, subscription, shop and magazine might slowly turn into a little beast that has to be tamed and cared for.Show more