Gearabout
Gearabout is a cult publication covering the outer fringes of outdoor gear — ultralight, expedition-grade and genuinely weird equipment. The editorial team had deep audience trust but an aging WordPress build that loaded slowly, looked tired on mobile and made publishing a chore.
- Client
- Gearabout Magazine
- Industry
- Editorial / Media
- Timeline
- 14 weeks
- Our Role
- Strategy, Design, Development, CMS Architecture
- Technology Stack
- ReactNext.jsSanity CMSTailwind CSSVercel
A cult outdoor-gear magazine was losing readers to faster, cleaner competitors.
Rebuilt the CMS on a headless stack with an editorial design system and swipeable long-reads.
+68% session duration · 2.1s LCP · 3× newsletter signups.
In-Depth Case Study Analysis
We rebuilt the entire stack: Sanity CMS for a streamlined editorial workflow, a custom React front-end tuned for reading, and a swipeable long-read format that keeps users scrolling instead of bouncing. The new design system brought coherent typography, clear hierarchy and a voice that matches the brand's opinionated tone.
How we architected & delivered it.
Audience & Competitive Analysis
Surveyed 200 readers, audited 8 competitors and mapped the full content consumption journey on desktop and mobile.
Editorial Design System
Built a typography-first system with variable fonts, generous white space and a modular article template that adapts to any content format.
Headless CMS & Performance
Migrated 4,000 articles from WordPress to Sanity with zero content loss. Achieved 2.1s LCP through image pipeline optimisation and edge caching.
Newsletter & Analytics
Integrated a contextual newsletter sign-up within long-reads, tied to a Mailchimp automation. Set up Plausible for privacy-first analytics.
Production Artifacts
ArtX didn't just rebuild our site — they rebuilt how we think about publishing. The new stack has made our team 30% faster and our readers stay twice as long.