Coronet LED is a leading US-based provider of bespoke lighting solutions — products designed for architects, interior designers, and lighting specifiers. Their custom capabilities were extensive, but their website couldn't communicate that complexity. A standard product grid couldn't convey the nuance of custom lighting design. More practically, their marketing team was dependent on developers for every content update, creating delays whenever new products were added or specs changed.
The solution needed two things: a more compelling product showcase experience that supported the exploration of complex custom lighting designs, and a CMS integration that gave Coronet's non-technical team autonomous control over their content. The constraint was the existing WordPress platform — the solution had to integrate with and extend what was already there, not replace it.
I designed a dedicated showcase section optimized for complex lighting product exploration. The navigation system supports filtering by application, specification, and customization category — matching how lighting designers and specifiers actually search. High-resolution imagery with contextual information gave users the detail they needed to make informed decisions.
The CMS integration was as much a design problem as a technical one. I defined the content model: what fields Coronet's team would manage, how products were structured, and what customization paths were available without needing a developer. The CMS interface itself was designed to match the mental model of the marketing team, not the WordPress developer.
Lighting specifiers work across contexts — desktop in the office, tablet at a site visit, phone on the go. I designed the showcase to be genuinely useful at all breakpoints, with the product detail views adapting to maintain readability and comparison capability on smaller screens.
The project included training Coronet's team on the CMS. I designed the handoff documentation to match the specific workflows they'd perform most frequently. Six months after launch, the team was managing their product catalog independently with no developer involvement for routine updates.
The CMS wasn't an afterthought — it was a core deliverable with its own UX. I designed the content model and admin interface to match how Coronet's team thought about their products, not how WordPress stores data. This distinction determined whether the CMS would actually get used after handoff.
A custom platform would have given us more control but created a long-term maintenance dependency for Coronet. Building within WordPress preserved the team's existing skills and workflows while adding the specific capabilities they needed. Right-sized solutions for the client's actual capacity.
LED lighting products need to be seen in context — a spec sheet doesn't convey how the light performs in a room. Designed the product pages around large-format photography of installations, with technical specs accessible but secondary. The visual experience communicated product quality in a way the previous text-heavy layout couldn't. Result: client reported stronger engagement from specifiers and architects visiting the product pages.
The Coronet LED showcase launched within the existing WordPress platform, giving the marketing team autonomous control over their product catalog. The CMS integration eliminated the bottleneck of developer dependency for routine updates, improving both operational efficiency and content currency.
This project taught me that the most durable design solutions are the ones the client can maintain themselves. A beautifully designed showcase that requires a developer to update every product loses its value quickly. The CMS design was the actual long-term deliverable; the visual design was the front door.