Sunford News
A custom WordPress newsroom that gave a new outlet the presence of an established publication.
Client project for a newly launched Nigerian news outlet, designed and built end to end by our founding engineer.
- Type
- News publishing platform
- Context
- Client project
- Our role
- Design, WordPress development, hosting and email set-up
- Year
- 2026
- Status
- Live
- Live site
- sunfordnews.com(opens in a new tab)
Overview
Sunford News covers national news, politics, defence and security, the economy, energy and investigative journalism. As a new outlet, it needed to look credible from its first day, without the generic feel of an off-the-shelf news theme.
The problem
The outlet needed a professional web presence that did not look like a template, because credibility is everything for a new publication.
The editorial team is not technical, so publishing had to be simple enough to do every day without developer help.
Readers and sources needed confidence that the site and its email addresses were secure and legitimate.
Goals
- Launch a distinctive, credible news platform
- Give non-technical staff a daily publishing workflow they can manage alone
- Establish secure infrastructure, including SSL and branded email, from launch
Approach and key decisions
- A custom theme instead of a news template
- The homepage is structured around the outlet's own editorial sections, so its priorities are visible at a glance.
- Designed for two audiences
- Readers get clear navigation through categories and archives; editors get a straightforward publishing dashboard.
- Credibility through infrastructure
- SSL and branded email addresses were set up as part of the build, not left as follow-up tasks.
What was built
- Homepage organised by editorial section
- Category and archive pages with search
- Article template with social sharing and related stories
- Publishing dashboard for editorial staff
- SSL and branded email addresses
Technologies
- WordPress
- PHP
- MySQL
- Custom theme
- SSL
Results
- Scoped, built and delivered in six weeks
- Live and publishing at sunfordnews.com
Client feedback
Working with LEO was a great experience. The website is attractive, easy to navigate, and simple to operate, with a well-designed light and dark mode. Since launch, users have needed very little assistance understanding how it works. I'm highly satisfied with the result and would recommend LEO to anyone looking for a website.
What we learned
A distinctive design and an easy editorial workflow are not in tension if the content structure is agreed before visual design starts.
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