Studio Archetype Website

I was in charge of maintaining the website for a creator company known as Studio Archetype. Studio Archetype is a Minecraft mod studio specializing in cinematography and creator tools.

Technologies Used

• Next.js - Framework
• Braintree - Payments
• Tailwind CSS - Styles

Problems I Solved

When I was hired the site was left in an unfinished state from a previous dev who flaked. I was immediately tasked with cleaning up his codebase, organizing and modernizing the code,

Payment System

The previous dev was hired to implement Braintree payments and had left this unfinished and broken. I cleaned up his code and made payments through Braintree work using GraphQL. We had previously been using PayPal but wanted to cut down on fees.

I had never used GraphQL before, so I learned how it worked and implemented it to work with the Braintree GraphQL API.

Messy Styles

The previous developer(s) used Tailwind CSS to author styles on the site. This was my first time using Tailwind so I learned how it worked and started cleaning up. The codebase became much easier to manage after that.

Many of these styles were freehanded and not well organized. I took the time to organize them into a more maintainable structure with a consistent naming convention and a clear hierarchy. I also created a design system to ensure consistency across the site.

Broken Downloads

Since Studio Archetype sold Minecraft mods, we had implemented a DRM in our flagship product. Our download system was tasked with embedding the DRM into the mod files and ensuring that only authorized users could access them. At the time, this download system was sending empty files. We decided to remove the DRM entirely and instead rely on a more secure authentication system, so I was responsible for fixing the downloads and authentication.

Features Implemented

Admin Panel

When I signed on, there was a very basic admin panel for managing content, subscriptions, and users. I expanded on this system to include features for managing more of the site’s content, as well as new products and services. I also worked to improve the user experience and cleaned up the code powering this panel as I worked.

Takeaways

When I started working on this project, I learned how to quickly pick up where a previous developer left off, and how to incrementally improve and modernize an older codebase.