The Challenge

Kerry needed a platform that could hold multiple interconnected products — a book, a coaching practice with three service tiers, a shop, a journal, a media section, and a fine art portfolio — without feeling like a content dump. Her audience is women 45+ navigating major life transitions: career shifts, empty nest, divorce, relocation, creative reinvention. They are smart, skeptical of performance, and responsive to honesty.

The design constraint that shaped everything: eliminate subscriptions where possible, avoid big-tech dependencies, and build something Kerry could maintain herself without technical help.

Process

• Research & Source Content: Used Google Gemini deep research tasks to build a detailed audience profile and competitive landscape, then fed curated findings to Claude to synthesize positioning and tone. Kerry's existing body of work — her books, her 2012 website HTML files, presentations, and articles — served as the primary source for crafting the content, brand voice, and structural framework. This replaced weeks of manual research synthesis with a focused two-day process.

• IA and Mockups: Built information architecture and wireframes in Penpot. Kerry's 2012 site — which I had built and tested extensively — provided a structural baseline that Claude Code could reference directly. The AI made a significant number of correct architectural assumptions from that prior work, which accelerated the early build considerably.

• Book Authoring & Client Ownership: Canva was used to author and design the Take Back series of books. Exporting to PPTX gave Kerry full offline ownership of the files — no subscription lock-in, no platform dependency, and complete freedom to update or reprint on her own terms.

• Development: Claude Code CLI handled the development heavy lifting throughout. The workflow was genuinely collaborative — I directed the design decisions and copy strategy while Claude handled implementation, flagging technical tradeoffs and offering alternatives in real time. After struggling with multiple AI models in the earlier part of 2025, Claude was the first tool that felt like actual co-creation rather than prompt-and-hope.

• The Hardest Integration — Publii: I was committed to open-source tooling so Kerry could publish without subscription fees or technical dependency. The Publii integration required significant iteration — settings bugs, configuration edge cases, deployment issues — before it worked reliably. The result: Kerry now publishes new journal entries with a single click, with no ongoing cost and no platform lock-in.

• Claude Cowork & Automation: Paul helped Kerry set up and learn Claude Cowork. Custom connectors now automate processes that were previously impossible for a non-technical user — saving Kerry upwards of 50% of her time and enabling workflows that were simply beyond her skill set before.

• Other Integrations: FormSpree (contact), MailerLite (email list), Fourthwall (shop), Calendly (booking), Lulu and 24bookprint (print book fulfillment).

Key Design Decisions

The central design decision was not visual — it was philosophical. Kerry's coaching practice is built on radical honesty. She helps people stop performing and start living authentically. That value had to be present in every layer of the site: the copy tone, the service framing, the testimonials, the way the book is presented.

We made a deliberate choice to prioritize helpfulness over conversion optimization at every decision point where those two things were in tension. This is not a common choice in coaching website design, where dark patterns and urgency triggers are standard. It is the right choice for this client and this audience.

Tools Used

• Book Authoring: Canva (with PPTX export for offline ownership)

• Design & Prototyping: Penpot

• Development: Claude Code CLI, HTML/CSS/JS

• Publishing: Publii (journal/blog), Hostinger (hosting)

• Automation: Claude Cowork with custom connectors

• Integrations: FormSpree, MailerLite, Fourthwall, Calendly, Lulu, 24bookprint

Outcome

The site launched March 17, 2026. Kerry shared it widely in the first days after launch and received immediate positive response — including from people with technical backgrounds who recognized the quality of the build. Coaching inquiries and book sales metrics are early stage; outcomes to be updated as the platform matures.

What is already clear: the site accurately represents who Kerry is, holds the full complexity of her work without overwhelming visitors, and gives her complete editorial and publishing independence with zero ongoing subscription cost. Kerry Pastine's Take Back is now a complete AI-enhanced coaching ecosystem — book series, website, blog, shop, booking, email list, and automated workflows all working in concert.

Reflection

This project paved the way for every subsequent AI-assisted build. The lesson was not about any specific tool — it was about the quality of collaboration possible when you treat AI as a genuine co-creator rather than an autocomplete engine. The human-in-the-loop wasn't a safety mechanism; it was where the actual design thinking lived.

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