Software

Perdura

A Shared Family Archive Built for Stories, Contribution and Ownership

Status
Public beta
Platform
Astro · Payload CMS · TypeScript · PostgreSQL
A published Perdura memorial archive, with a portrait, dates and the opening of a life story set on a warm cream ground

Visit perdura.org

The Brief

A traditional obituary captures a few facts about a person. It rarely has room for the stories, photographs, friendships, work and habits that make a life recognisable to the people who knew it.

Perdura began with a practical question. How can a family create an archive that relatives can add to, that someone in the family reviews, and that the family can keep if the hosted service changes? Most options offer a short tribute or a printed book, with online access that depends on the company holding the material.

Garrett Digital defined the product, designed the experience, built the application, and continues to run and improve it.

What We Built

  1. Family Ownership Shaped the Product From the Start

    Published archives are static pages, and the content and media were modelled around a family keeping its own copy. Today the export produces a content bundle and a printable book. The complete export of written content and original media is still in development.

  2. A Private Way for Relatives to Contribute

    Family members receive a private link where they can write a memory, record their voice, or add photographs and video from a phone. Nothing is published until an owner or editor in the family reviews it, and contributors do not create an account before they take part.

  3. A Publishing System Designed for Many Families

    Each archive publishes to its own address while using shared content models and a themed design system. Creating a new archive follows the same publishing process instead of requiring a fresh custom build for every family.

  4. A Design System Made for Careful Reading

    Type, color, spacing and content patterns support a page someone may read closely, share with relatives, and return to over time. The design needed to feel personal and calm while staying readable and consistent across many archives.

From Contribution to Published Archive

A family archive needs more than a public page. It needs a way for people to add material privately, a clear review step, a repeatable publishing process, and a copy that does not exist only inside the platform. Perdura separates those jobs so each one can work without adding work for the family.

Structured Content

Stories, moments, people, photographs and messages are stored as related content types rather than one long page. That gives the archive room to grow while keeping new material consistent and easy to place.

Private Contribution and Review

Contributors use private links to add memories and media. An owner or editor decides what appears publicly, so taking part stays simple while the archive stays intentional.

Static Publishing

Approved content publishes as a static Astro site. Public pages are delivered as prebuilt files rather than running application code for each reader. That keeps the public archive light and reduces the number of moving parts in the reading experience.

Family Export

The export gives a family a bundle it can keep and use away from the hosted service. Today that is a content bundle and a printable book, with the full written and media export in development. That requirement shaped the data and publishing design from the start.

The Work in Context

Contributing Without an Account

The contribution section of a published archive, showing a candle-lighting panel and an Add a Memory form noting that submissions are reviewed before they appear
A relative can write a memory, record their voice, or add photographs and video through a private link. The form says plainly that someone in the family reviews each submission before it appears, and nobody creates an account to take part.

A Life in Moments

A timeline section of the archive, showing dated moments from the person's life with photographs and short descriptions
The timeline gives a family a place to add dated stories, photographs and milestones over time. The content model holds the date, the place, the media and the narrative each entry needs without making the published archive feel like a database.

Built for the Phone It Will Be Read On

Two phone screenshots side by side, the Perdura marketing site and a published memorial archive
A memorial link is often opened on a phone, in a moment when the reader needs the page to be clear and calm. The mobile layout keeps the story, the photographs and the spacing readable rather than compressing the archive into a feed, which is where readable type and spacing matter most.

One Visual System Across Every Archive

The Perdura brand page, showing the typographic scale, color palette and interface components used across the product
Type, color, spacing and components are documented as a shared system. Each new archive can still feel like Perdura while following the same visual rules and the same publishing process.

The Capabilities Behind the Archive

Families Can Keep Their Own Copy

The export produces a content bundle and a printable book today, with the full written and media export in development, so access does not depend on the hosted service alone.

Relatives Can Contribute Without Giving Up Editorial Control

Private links make it easy to add material. An owner or editor decides what becomes part of the published archive.

A Personal Archive Can Still Be Practical to Run

Shared content models and documented design rules let new archives follow a consistent publishing process instead of requiring a new build each time.

Project Details

Services

  • Product discovery and requirements
  • Information architecture and content modeling
  • Custom application design and development
  • Contribution and approval workflow design
  • Brand identity and product design
  • Design system and accessibility
  • Static publishing and archive-export architecture
  • Deployment and platform operations
  • Search engine optimization

Platform and Tools

  • Astro
  • Payload CMS
  • TypeScript
  • PostgreSQL
  • Cloudflare Pages
  • Cloudflare R2

Related Work

Need a Product, Portal or Publishing System Built Around Your Process?

We design and build custom applications for work that does not fit a template, including structured content, user roles, approval steps, private workflows, publishing systems and data exports. Perdura is one product we defined, built and continue to run.

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