Freshgrass
Coding a New Zealand business consultancy's self-designed website into a working build, then quietly migrating it to free GitHub Pages hosting once it became clear they didn't need a CMS to maintain it.
Overview
freshgrass.co.nzFreshgrass is a New Zealand business consultancy that approached the project with their own designs already in hand. The brief was straightforward — turn the designs into a working website on a hosted CMS so the team could update content. Over time it became clear the team rarely needed to update anything, and the monthly hosted-CMS subscription wasn't pulling its weight. The site was migrated to free GitHub Pages hosting, eliminating the recurring cost without changing what visitors see.
What we did
- Coded client-supplied designs into a working website
- Initial deployment on a hosted CMS platform
- Migration to GitHub Pages for free static hosting
- Mobile-first responsive build
- Ongoing support and maintenance
Tech stack
The Project
A consultancy site, eventually rehoused for free.
Freshgrass came with their own designs and a brief to build them properly. What started on a hosted CMS ended up on free static hosting once the editing pattern made it clear the CMS was unnecessary.
Freshgrass arrived with the design work already done — clean, considered visuals from a team that knew what they wanted the site to look like. The brief was specifically a build, not a redesign: take the existing designs and turn them into a working, responsive website on a platform the team could update from.
The first incarnation lived on a hosted CMS so the team had editing access if they wanted it. What we found over the following months was that they almost never needed it. The site was a stable representation of the consultancy — services, contact, the usual — and updates came through maybe once or twice a year. Paying a monthly hosted-CMS fee for a site that's effectively static stops making sense fairly quickly.
The fix was a migration to GitHub Pages, the free static hosting option I wrote about here. The migration was invisible to visitors — same URL, same site, same look — but it eliminated the recurring hosting cost entirely. The team can still request edits when they need them; we just don't pay anyone monthly for the privilege.
Get in touch
Like what you see?
Get in touch and let's build something great for your business.
Let's talk about your project.
Ready to get started? I'd love to hear about your business and what you're looking to achieve online.
