Kurtis Delight

A music zine lives or dies on feel. It needed its own world, not a blog theme with the colours swapped. It also had to do real work: publish big, long-form ranked features that stay readable, sell merch, and play music, all without feeling like three different sites stitched together. And it had to be cheap to run, because it is a passion project, not a funded business.

A complete custom build, top to bottom. The whole thing is a committed “digital zine” world: numbered editorial sections, an illustrated mascot, grain and halftone texture, and typography picked for the brand rather than pulled from a default list.

• ✓A custom layout system for long-form ranked listicles, so a 25-entry feature reads like a magazine, not a scroll of identical blocks.
• ✓An article pipeline that runs on my own server and feeds an SEO engine, so the site keeps growing without me typing every word by hand.
• ✓A live player built into the page that streams the latest track.
• ✓A custom merch store front-end wired to a live commerce backend, in the site's own look and currency.
• ✓Reading-progress, custom transitions and the small interactive details that make it feel made.

It is hosted on my own server in Docker, which keeps running costs low and gives me full control over how it is deployed.

A music site that looks and behaves like nothing else, runs on cheap infrastructure I control, and grows on its own through the article pipeline. It is also my proof of work: when I tell a client I build from the code up rather than fitting them into a template, this is the thing I point at. I made every part of it.