Nay-Na — A Digital Home for Eritrean Diaspora Women
From zero to a live, content-rich editorial platform in under two weeks. Four editorial pillars, nine seed articles, a 3D WebGL hero, mobile-responsive Kadence build, and Atelier UI Protocol design system.
Back Story
Nay-Na (ናይና — Tigrinya for "ours") began as an observation: there was no dedicated digital magazine for Eritrean diaspora women. Existing diaspora media was fragmented across WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, and YouTube channels — nothing that combined sharp satire, unretouched beauty, diaspora finance, and Tigrinya music curation in one editorial home.
The brief was to stand up a complete editorial platform — domain, hosting, theme, content, and visual identity — from a cold start. The site had to feel lived-in from day one, not like a placeholder.
The Build
- Deployed WordPress on an Azure VM (Germany West Central) with nginx, PHP 8.3-FPM, MariaDB, SSL via Let's Encrypt, and Fail2Ban.
- Evaluated Elementor template kits vs. Kadence + Gutenberg custom layout — chose Gutenberg for speed, maintainability, and editorial flexibility.
- Built a 3D WebGL hero banner (via Three.js rendered to PNG) with transparent Kadence header overlay and sticky-navigation behaviour.
- Published 9 seed articles across 4 categories — Guaila Lounge (satire), Untouched Heritage (beauty & wellness), Diaspora Wallet (finance), Zemen Beats (music) — backdated for a lived-in feel.
- Installed Smash Balloon YouTube Feeds for Zemen Beats, planned AutomatorWP evaluation for video automation.
- Defined the Atelier UI Protocol — a constrained component-generation standard that produced consistent, high-quality Tailwind/HTML mockups across sessions and models.
Headline Tasks
- Deleted 146 generic Elementor "Online Magazine" demo posts and replaced with culturally authentic seed content.
- Designed warm-earth Habesha palette (terracotta #C67B4B, cream #F5E6D3, olive #4A6741, dark brown #3B2F2F) with Playfair Display + Inter typography.
- Wrote full UX specifications for four pillar subpages — Guaila Lounge, Untouched Heritage, Diaspora Wallet, and Zemen Beats — each with confirmed Q&A-driven design decisions.