Pet Blog & Photo Gallery
Built projectThe Beagle · Pets & Care · Bilingual pet blog & photo gallery
A personal site in English and Portuguese dedicated to one beagle: posts about the breed's temperament and curiosities, a photo gallery with a lightbox, and a language toggle. Pages are statically prerendered from file-based content, and posts are written through an admin CMS that only exists in development.
The Beagle is a personal website dedicated to one beagle, in English and Portuguese. It carries posts about the breed's temperament and curiosities, a photo gallery with a lightbox, and a toggle to switch languages. Under the surface it is a small demonstration of a content site done well: pages are statically prerendered from file-based content, and posts are written through an admin CMS that only exists in development. It is an in-house project, made for the pleasure of making it, and shown here honestly as that.
What's included
Posts on temperament and breed curiosities
The editorial core of the site: written posts about what beagles are like and the curiosities of the breed, published in both languages.
Photo gallery with lightbox
A browsable gallery where each photo opens in a lightbox. For a pet site the gallery is half the point, so it is a first-class page rather than an afterthought.
English/Portuguese language toggle
One switch moves the visitor between the English and Portuguese versions of the site, keeping both audiences on equal footing.
Statically prerendered pages
Every page is generated ahead of time, so visitors are served finished pages. That is what makes the site quick and the hosting simple.
Dev-only admin CMS for content
Posts are written through a CMS that runs only in development. The published site carries no admin panel, which removes a whole category of maintenance and risk.
Who it's for
As a case study, The Beagle is for anyone who wants a content site: a blog, a hobby site, a fan page, a small publication, or a site about a very good dog. It shows the shape such a site can take when it is built simply and deliberately rather than assembled from a heavyweight platform.
It is particularly relevant if your audience spans two languages. The whole site exists in English and Portuguese with a toggle between them, which is the structure any bilingual blog or small publication needs.
The problem it solves
The project set out to answer a modest question properly: what is the right way to build a small content site in two languages? Blogging platforms solve it with a database, an always-on admin panel, plugins, and the maintenance those things demand, which is a lot of machinery for a site about one dog.
The answer here is file-based content and static prerendering. Posts live as files, every page is prerendered, and the admin CMS used to write posts exists only in development, so the public site ships no admin surface at all. The result is fast, cheap to host, and has very little that can break.
How it compares
The conventional route for a site like this is a blogging platform: a database, themes, plugins, and an admin login on the public internet, all needing updates forever. For a small content site that machinery is mostly liability. The static, file-based approach here keeps the writing workflow pleasant while the published site stays plain, fast prerendered pages.
The honest framing matters: this is a personal site about the family dog, not client work and not a product. It earns its place in the portfolio because it shows the standard applied when nobody was paying for it, and because the same architecture, statically prerendered, bilingual, gallery-first, is exactly what a small content-driven business site can be built on.
Frequently asked questions
Can you build a blog or content site like this for me?
Yes. The same approach suits blogs, hobby sites, and small publications, in one language or two. Get in touch and describe what you have in mind.
Is this a client project?
No. The Beagle is a personal, in-house project about one beagle. It is shown as an example of what a content site can look like, not as commissioned work.
Why does the site load so quickly?
Every page is statically prerendered from file-based content, so visitors receive finished pages rather than waiting on a database.
How are posts written if there is no admin panel online?
Through an admin CMS that exists only in development. Content is written there, then the site is rebuilt and the finished pages are published.
Could the same setup handle other language pairs?
Yes. The bilingual structure with a language toggle is not specific to English and Portuguese; the same pattern works for other pairs.