Website rebuild for ITIJ Awards

Project Overview

Voyageur, a long-standing client of mine, engaged me to redevelop their website for the International Travel & Health Insurance Journal (ITIJ) Awards. The ITIJ Awards is an international conference set up to celebrate outstanding achievements in the global travel insurance sector. The goal for the new website was to unify the content under a coherent visual brand, enhancing user engagement and clarity in conveying the event’s prestigious nature.

Challenges

Prior to the redesign, the ITIJ Awards website lacked a cohesive user experience. The challenge was to overhaul the website to not only promote the upcoming conference but also to provide an accessible archive of past events.

As I’d been involved in updating the website code, I used this as an opportunity to incorporate the latest Gutenberg block technology, deviating from ACF to a more native editing experience.

Solution

The redesign process began with comprehensive layouts provided by the lead designer in Figma. I used the design to extract the colours, fonts, spacing and layout and use these to build up settings in the code via a theme.json file. Individual page layouts and blocks were created for each page template but could allow any number of layouts in the future. To achieve this, each block was crafted as a standalone element, enabling the creation of versatile page templates from an expansive block library.

One of the standout features I developed was a live countdown timer block. Unlike standard plugins, this custom block was designed to allow easy customization with a date picker and accompanying message:

I utilised luxon.js, a JavaScript library built for managing complex date and time calculations. This was crucial in accommodating the international scope of the conference and its varying time zones. This meant that no matter where you are the world, the countdown will always show the correct time.

The Result

The feedback was fantastic. The team at Voyageur loved how straightforward it was to build out pages and I’m really happy with how the editing mirrors the front end. The client can reorder the components as they see fit , further extending the longevity of the website.

How the blocks appear on the front end:

Conclusion

Both myself and my client are really happy with this project. It shows off my best work whilst being really simple from an editing point of view. The move towards a more native, visual editor in Gutenberg has shown some impressive performance gains. The new ITIJ Awards website isn’t just a hub for information—it’s a dynamic space that celebrates the spirit of the travel insurance community.