Directory platform · My own product
East Anglia Insider
East Anglia Insider is a directory and guide covering Suffolk and Norfolk: pubs, restaurants, hotels, walks, events, and the independent businesses behind them. It is not client work. I designed it, built it, and operate it as my own product, which means every part of it, from the database to the smallest hover state, is my decision.
The brief
A brochure site can describe a region. A platform has to serve it. The goal was a directory that holds thousands of listings and events, lets business owners submit and claim their own entries, takes payments, and stays fast and pleasant to browse on a phone in a pub garden.
It also acts as proof of what I can build end-to-end: authentication, payments, moderation, maps, editorial content and search, all in one coherent product.
What I built
- A full directory with categories, towns and curated collections across Suffolk and Norfolk
- Business submission and claim flows with embedded authentication, so owners manage their own listings
- An amenity tagging system (Dog Friendly, Wheelchair Accessible, Outdoor Seating and more) that powers honest, useful filtering
- Events with date-aware cards that grey out gracefully once an event has passed
- Google Maps integration with pin-drop and place search for accurate business locations
- Stripe payments, transactional email with Resend, and error monitoring with Sentry
- An editorial journal for guides and day-trip features
From the live build · rebuilt for this page
OTB Studio
Custom websites for businesses across the region, from first design concepts to launch and ongoing support.
The listing card rebuilt from the production codebase, showing a real entry: OTB Studio's own listing on the Insider. Click it to see the live page.
Details that mattered
A warm, editorial design system
Cream paper tones, Cormorant Garamond headlines and soft amber accents make a database-driven site feel like a well-made county magazine rather than a listings machine.
Small touches that carry the character
Cards lift on spring physics, and key buttons draw a subtle hand-drawn border on hover, a detail built from a seeded SVG wobble so it renders identically every time.
Built for search from the ground up
Every town, category and listing is a real indexable page with structured data, which is how a young directory earns local search visibility over time.
The outcome
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