Father Actual

Project overview

Father Actual is an online education and community brand built around a single idea: that fatherhood is a practiced role rather than a title. The engagement covers the brand itself, the website, a custom community platform, and the ongoing content operation behind it.

The centerpiece is not a marketing page. It is a community forum application designed and built inside Wix Studio and Velo, with its own data model, routing, permissions, and interaction rules. The public site carries the brand and the message; the forum is where the work of the community happens.

The site launched on Mother's Day 2026, opening with a filmed letter to mothers, and the community forum is live alongside it. The brand's course programming is still being shaped and has not yet been added to the public site, so the build was scoped to launch the brand and the community first.

My contribution

I serve as the creative, digital, content-production, and operational lead for the brand, translating the founder's vision into a cohesive identity, a functioning website, multimedia content, a publishing workflow, and ongoing digital operations.

I designed and built the website end to end, covering structure, visual design, written messaging, user experience, responsive layouts, and technical implementation, and I continue to manage and update it.

I also establish and maintain the brand's visual identity, including colors, typography, layouts, website graphics, thumbnails, and social assets, and support broader brand development across messaging, written content, and curriculum.

The photography and video used across the brand are produced in house as part of the same engagement, alongside podcast and video editing, short-form clips, and a monthly newsletter published across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X, Patreon, and the membership platform.

Technical implementation

The community application is built on Wix Studio and Wix Velo. A custom CMS schema models categories, posts, replies, and votes, and dynamic routes render category listings and individual threads with sorting and pinned-post support.

Authorization is enforced in backend Velo web modules rather than in the browser. The composer checks membership before a post can be created, and the upvote endpoint verifies identity before recording a vote. Vote counts are denormalized onto the records they belong to, so listings do not need to aggregate on every read.

The branded forum entrance is implemented as a reusable custom web component with responsive stacking and reduced-motion support.

Results

Father Actual launched on May 10, 2026 with its brand website and custom member community platform live. The initial release established the technical foundation for future growth: member identity, server-gated participation, dynamic discussion routes, structured community data, and a reusable branded interface.

From launch through August 9, 2026, the site recorded 167 sessions from 98 unique visitors and 225 pageviews, with visitors spending an average of 2 minutes 54 seconds on the site. These figures establish the brand's initial post-launch traffic baseline.

Father Actual had not yet activated its planned public course or service offering during this reporting period, so no enrollment, conversion, or revenue outcome is claimed.

Performance data from May 10-August 9, 2026. Source: Wix Analytics.

Tools used

• Wix Studio — Responsive website, brand layouts, member experience, and the community forum front end.
• Wix Velo — Web modules, server-side authentication, vote handling, and dynamic forum routing.
• Wix CMS and Data — Custom schema for forum categories, posts, replies, and votes.
• Wix Members — Member accounts, gated posting, and identity for community participation.
• Custom web component — Reusable branded forum entrance with responsive stacking and reduced motion.
• HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — Component behavior, responsive layout, and interaction detail.
• Adobe Creative Suite — Photography, video production and editing, brand graphics, thumbnails, and social assets.

Related projects

• Insight Tutoring
• Scout Search Group
• Moo Enterprises

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