Designing and Building lenoezechiel.com in Drupal

Overview

lenoezechiel.com is a self-initiated project created to present work across digital communication, design, photography, video, motion, UI/UX and interactive projects. The challenge was not simply to make an attractive portfolio, but to build a structure that could hold very different kinds of content without losing clarity. This website is the Drupal project I currently present publicly as evidence of hands-on experience. It was not commissioned by a client, and no outside organisation is presented as the sponsor of the Drupal build.

The challenge

A multidisciplinary portfolio can quickly become a series of galleries with little hierarchy. Recruiters need to understand a role, clients want to see outcomes, collaborators want to assess a method, and the content itself requires different formats. I therefore needed one system that could present detailed case studies, images, videos, documents, filters and two languages without feeling like several websites stitched together.

Audiences and objectives

Primary audiences: international selection panels, recruiters, international organisations, institutions, NGOs, companies, prospective clients and creative collaborators. Objectives: make my positioning clear within a few moments; show the context, my contribution and the outcome of each project; support discovery by discipline and type of work; provide a consistent experience in English and French; make media and professional documents easy to review; create an editorial structure that can grow without rebuilding every page.

My role

I defined the website’s positioning, content structure, page hierarchy, navigation journeys, visual direction and English and French copy. I then implemented the experience in Drupal, populated the projects and documents, checked behaviour across screen sizes and continued refining the website after launch. My role therefore spans the product, the content and the final quality of the site. Where development-assistance tools are used, they remain production tools; responsibility for structure, interface, content, validation and publication remains mine.

Content architecture

The content is organised into distinct families: case studies, graphic design, photography, motion and video, professional experience, recognition, certificates and documents. Recurring information — title, summary, context, date, discipline, sector, media, language and related work — is structured to reduce inconsistency and allow reuse across cards, filters, search results and detail pages. This approach makes it possible to add new work without manually rebuilding the entire layout, while helping visitors compare very different projects through a shared set of reference points.

Bilingual experience

English and French are not treated as a last-minute automatic translation. Pages, menus, filters, calls to action, metadata and interface copy must exist in both languages and carry the same meaning while reading naturally in each one. The French version uses direct, idiomatic language. The English version uses consistent, professional international English. Official names of organisations, programmes and awards remain unchanged where no official translation exists.

Search, filters and navigation

The website supports exploration rather than forcing one fixed journey. Cards provide a first layer of information; search and filters narrow the library; taxonomies connect work by discipline; and links between case studies encourage further discovery. The journey should remain simple: a visitor can search for a subject, filter by discipline or sector, open a project, understand my role, and continue to related work or the contact page.

Media, documents and interface

The portfolio brings together photography, video, graphic work and downloadable documents without treating them as loose attachments. Each format is given context, a clear title and a defined place in the journey. Reusable components keep presentation consistent across pages and make future updates easier. The interface prioritises clear hierarchy, readable copy, explicit actions, small-screen adaptation and restrained motion. Videos should not autoplay, and images should have useful descriptions where their content carries information.

Process

1. Understand — define the audiences, the decisions to support and the evidence to show. 2. Structure — organise content, relationships, languages, taxonomies and journeys. 3. Design — establish visual hierarchy, reusable components and responsive behaviour. 4. Build — configure and implement the experience in Drupal. 5. Populate — write, translate and import projects, media and documents. 6. Verify — check links, translations, interface states, forms and critical journeys. 7. Optimise — remove inconsistencies, reduce media weight and improve readability. 8. Maintain — evolve the portfolio as new work is added.

Deliverables

Live bilingual Drupal website; content architecture for several disciplines; case-study library with search, filters and sorting; graphic design, photography and video galleries; about, résumé and contact journeys; professional document library; reusable interface components; SEO metadata and relationships between language versions; editorial update and quality-control method.

Outcome

The result is a live bilingual portfolio that brings previously dispersed material into one editorial experience. It can present very different forms of work, make professional evidence easier to review, and demonstrate in practical terms my ability to structure and build a content product in Drupal.

7 case studies · 24 graphic-design projects · 11 video productions · 19 selected photographs · 20 public documents · English/French.

What I learned

This project confirmed that a portfolio becomes more credible when structure comes before decoration. Defining content types, relationships, languages and journeys early makes the design more coherent and future updates easier. It also allowed me to turn an initial hands-on Drupal experience into a real, public product that can continue to improve.

Status and transparency

Self-initiated project independently designed, populated and published. This case study documents lenoezechiel.com, which is the Drupal project currently presented in this portfolio. It should not be interpreted as a client-commissioned or employer-sponsored Drupal delivery.