Role: Primary Developer

Collaboration: Development, Marketing, Client Leadership, Project / account management

Project summary:

  • Custom WordPress theme for a legacy-to-CMS migration, organized into modular PHP templates (layouts, modules, shared settings).
  • ACF Pro flexible content as the main page builder: authors stack reusable sections instead of wrestling the default editor.
  • Front-end toolchainSass + Webpack to ship versioned main and admin bundles.
  • Performance-minded WordPress defaults: trims common head bloat, tightens script loading (footer jQuerydeferred main JS, no jquery-migrate), and removes what the theme does not need on the public site.
  • Navigation UX + accessibility engineeringcustom menu walker separates links from submenu togglescontextual labels when menu text repeats.
  • Content accessibility helpers: targeted aria-label work for repeated WYSIWYG links where editors reuse patterns like “learn more.”
  • Strict, intentional outputwp_kses-style allowlists for SVG / iframe / image patterns the theme emits.
  • Media utilitiesYouTube/Vimeo parsing, validated thumbnails, and accessible embeds.
  • Search/listing support: reusable query helper with Relevanssi awareness when applicable; styled search results flow.
  • SEO polishRank Math breadcrumb adjustment for a cleaner Products trail on child URLs.
  • Editor/admin quality-of-lifeACF options, limited block allowlist where blocks still appear, and admin assets to support the authoring experience.

Marketing Masters manufactures the highest quality thermoplastic composite clip nuts in the industry.

Clip Nuts (custom WordPress theme)

Clip Nuts is a custom, modular WordPress theme built on ACF Pro flexible content. Editors build pages from module templates (hero, columns, cards, media blocks, and that kind of thing). Shared module settings turn those choices into inline CSS custom properties, so spacing and layout can stay responsive without every page turning into a handwritten CSS science project.

Under the hood, the includes/ files (assets, menus, optimization, shortcodes, and friends) are the one-time wiring: they’re loaded at setup with require_once locate_template(...). The flexible layout loop renders each ACF row with get_template_part(), passing the row data as $args into modules/ and down into components/, so each template knows what it’s rendering without sprinkling globals everywhere.

Inside a module, shared pieces like module-settings/global.php get pulled in with include locate_template(...), which matters because it runs in the same variable scope as the module. That’s how values like $settings can quietly feed CSS variables and layout classes. The big picture page framing still lives in layouts/.

Assets are compiled with Webpack 5 and Sass into main.min.css and main.min.js, and there’s a separate admin bundle too, so the editor side gets the same build habits as the public site.

The front end is intentionally lean where WordPress ships a lot by default: things like block library styles, emoji/embed plumbing, jQuery Migrate, and other common head noise get removed when they’re not helping. jQuery goes in the footer, and the main bundle is deferred so the browser can get to markup and CSS first.

For accessibility, I focused on concrete problems I could solve in code. The header navigation uses a custom walker so real links and submenu toggles aren’t the same mushy control on small screens. When menu labels repeat under different parents, I disambiguate them for assistive tech. In body content, some WYSIWYG chunks can be post-processed so a page full of “learn more” links doesn’t all sound identical when someone pulls up a links list.

Sanitization is also deliberate: SVGs, iframes, and images go through wp_kses-style allowlists so the theme’s output stays predictable.

This is an ACF-first theme (not a Gutenberg block system), and the items above reflect implementation choices in code rather than a third-party audit claim.