Merlijn van der Male

Brand meets performance.

How I built this site.

My own site, from style guide to working pages, with AI built in. Then I rebuilt it in two other setups, to learn how they compare.

Side project

Webflow

WordPress and Elementor

Own WordPress theme

The video

A short look at where AI helped.

Style guide

Colors, type and rules in one design system, set up first so every page follows the same decisions.

Copy and hero

English copy written with AI, and a hero animation of two peaks that connect as you move the mouse.

CV

A career timeline with a scroll animation, plus PDFs in English and Dutch.

The details

A contact form, and a footer journey that ends with “That’s what we call a qualified lead.”

Three setups

The same site, built three ways as a test of the process. All three can get there. Webflow took the least plumbing, Elementor added visual editing inside WordPress, and my own theme removed the page builder altogether.

Webflow and Claude

The quickest start

What Claude does
Connects to pages, CMS, assets and SEO
Still by hand
Publishing and final checks
Where I edit
Webflow Designer
Design freedom
High, within Webflow
Running costs
Webflow plan(s)

Elementor and Claude

Visual editing in WordPress

What Claude does
Connects to pages and styles
Still by hand
Media, plugins and SEO fields
Where I edit
Elementor editor
Design freedom
High, within Elementor
Running costs
Hosting and Elementor Pro

Own theme and Claude

This site runs on it

Full control, no page builder

What Claude does
Writes the theme and blocks as code
Still by hand
Uploading each code change
Where I edit
WordPress block editor
Design freedom
Complete, in code
Running costs
Hosting