About Explore le Monde
Explore le Monde is a travel blog run by a globetrotting couple who travel the world meeting local people. Their approach is to build authentic connections with the communities they encounter and to share, through magnificent photographic reports, a vision of travel that respects people and the environment.
Why contact us
The couple had an aging WordPress site, whose outdated plugins had opened the door to several attacks. Despite the exceptional quality of their photographs, the user experience remained unengaging and did not do justice to their work. They entrusted us with the complete redesign of the site to secure it, modernize it, and fully showcase their editorial content.
Objectives and key features
The new site had to, above all, highlight the couple's fantastic photographic work, while strengthening their business model based on affiliate marketing. We designed custom travel partner inserts, perfectly integrated into the editorial line: both aesthetically pleasing and much more effective in terms of conversion rates.
Challenges and constraints
The main challenge was to visually translate the editors' commitment to sustainable tourism, respectful of the planet and local populations. The graphic design had to incorporate strong color constraints: a dark green and an "earthy" brown, which we developed into a cohesive and appealing palette. Technically, the site had to be based on a component-driven approach to ensure a flexible back-office and complete editorial autonomy.
Project steps
Brand identity creation
The first step was to establish the blog's visual identity. Starting with the imposed dark green and "earthy" brown, we built a complete, warm, and cohesive palette, evoking nature, the authenticity of encounters, and the couple's ecological commitment.
Mockups in Figma
We then created the entire graphic design and mockups in Figma, using a component-driven approach. This phase allowed us to design new responsive photo gallery grids, advanced tabbed and accordion components, as well as custom affiliate inserts, while structuring a fluid and coherent information architecture.
Gutenberg and GenerateBlocks integration
Once the mockups were approved, we proceeded with the integration under WordPress using the native Gutenberg editor coupled with GenerateBlocks. We leveraged the full potential of the tool to create effective compositions (responsive galleries, tabs, accordions, and synchronized blocks) that are easy to integrate and evolve as needed. This choice guarantees lightweight code, optimal performance, and a solid semantic structure, for a now secure site that the client is fully satisfied with.
The technical stack
Adobe Illustrator
The world's leading vector editing tool, suitable for creating high-definition logos and identities.
Figma
The collaborative design tool, designed to create modern, fluid, and intuitive interfaces.
GeneratePress
One of the most popular WordPress themes in the official directory, favored for its performance and flexibility.
WordPress
The world's leading CMS, powering approximately 40% of websites thanks to its excellent flexibility.
GenerateBlocks
The performance-oriented Gutenberg block library, ideal for integrating advanced designs with lightness.
GeneratePerf
The companion extension to GeneratePress developed by us, ensuring optimal performance, now available to everyone at generateperf.com.
Gutenberg
WordPress's native editor, offering the capabilities of a paid page builder within the CMS interface.
Cloudways
The managed Cloud host that offers one of the best price/performance ratios for running WordPress sites.
Cloudflare
The world's most popular CDN, ideal for boosting performance and security at a controlled cost.
The result in numbers
The new site displays solid technical performance, both on desktop and mobile.
100%
Protected against attacks
-55%
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
+25%
Earnings via affiliate links
-25%
Page publication time
Security, performance, accessibility, SEO... the new version of Explore le Monde shines in all areas where Google has high requirements. An essential mark of trust to shine in the SERPs.
The rest and conclusion in images
