Srta Realidad

Context

Cristina Morales writes prose poetry and narrative under the name Srta Realidad. The site introduces the author and her catalogue of books; selling is left to a later phase.

The brief carried one constraint that shaped everything else: her work deals with sensitive material. That turns any decision about tone into a decision about respect rather than style.

Approach

• Restraint as a requirement, not a preference. The copy is in the author’s first person, sober, without sensationalism, and without turning her experience into a marketing hook. It was agreed in writing that no delicate biographical detail is published without her explicit approval.
• A neutral shell with the accent inherited from each cover. The temptation was to paint the site in the colours of the gentler books, but that only described three of the eight. The container stays neutral and each book brings its own colour, so the catalogue can grow without the design contradicting itself.
• No AI for the author’s face. Real photography or none at all. On a site built on the honesty of the writing, a generated portrait would be a contradiction at the root, not a production shortcut.
• No invented figures. No print runs, no awards, no unverified reviews. Without a confirmed fact, nothing is published.
• Restrained motion: CSS with Alpine and conditional GSAP, under 60KB per template and honouring prefers-reduced-motion. Reveals accompany the reading rather than competing with it.
• Architecture ready for more languages without duplicating content yet.

What I built

• Bespoke WordPress child theme on a lightweight base
• Neutral design system with a per-book accent colour
• Book pages, biography, events calendar and news
• Light motion layer with reduced motion honoured
• Contact forms and technical SEO
• Go-live on the author’s own domain

Outcome

Live on its own domain, which belongs to the author rather than the studio. Phase 2 covers selling the books directly.

A note on this work

Built at Xpandex, where I run the full cycle: design, development, performance, accessibility, technical SEO and deployment. Copy and photography are the author’s.