Four Days, One New Tech Stack, and ANZSOG

ANZSOG, with JTB Studios

Some projects teach you something new about the work you already know how to do. This one taught me something new, period.

JTB Studios brought me on as a short term contractor to help revamp parts of the ANZSOG website, the Australia and New Zealand School of Government. Their team had a fresh design ready to go, and needed someone to come in fast, fix up existing components, and bring the new look to life.

The catch was the timeline. Four days.

The bigger catch was the stack. Storyblok CMS, a platform I had never touched in my life.

Jumping In Cold

There's a version of this project where I ask for more time, or lean on familiar tools and work around the parts I don't know. That wasn't really an option here. JTB needed the revamp done, the design was already locked, and the clock was already running.

So I did what I always do when I'm handed something unfamiliar under pressure. I broke it down, learned Storyblok's structure fast, and leaned hard on my AI tools to close the gap between what I knew and what the project needed. Big shoutout to Claude here, genuinely. Having something to pair with in real time, to sanity check Storyblok patterns and move quickly through unfamiliar territory, made a four day deadline feel achievable instead of terrifying.

What Got Revamped

Navigation The old navigation was static and didn't leave much room to grow. I rebuilt it to be dynamic, structured so it could flex with ANZSOG's content instead of fighting against it.

People Cards ANZSOG's site leans on its people, faculty, leadership, contributors, so their cards section needed to feel considered. I reworked this to match the new design while keeping it clean and easy to scale as more people got added.

Enrollment Card and Form This one mattered the most functionally. It's the piece standing between a visitor and actually signing up for a program, so it needed to look right and work flawlessly. I revamped both the card presentation and the form section itself, matching the new design and making sure the flow felt smooth end to end.

Looking Back

Four days doesn't leave room for a slow ramp up on new technology, and it definitely doesn't leave room for mistakes. But it also has a way of stripping a project down to what actually matters, learn fast, prioritize the right pieces, ship something solid.

ANZSOG is a genuinely great website to have worked on, and this one stands out for me. Not just for what got built, but for proving I could pick up a brand new stack under a tight deadline and still land it clean.

Contributed as Frontend Engineer

In collaboration with jtb studios

Made using Nextjs, Tailwind, Storyblok CMS