Maggie McGees

Maggie McGees was a delivered website and digital system for a children's book project. The work included the public-facing website, a payment and ordering flow, a backend workflow for managing sales and fulfilment, the layout of the book itself, and an interactive soundboard designed to accompany the reading experience.

The project needed to support both sides of the work: the practical needs of selling and fulfilling books, and the more experiential goal of making the story feel alive for young children and the adults reading with them.

A children's book project needs more than a simple website. The author and artist needed a way to present the book, take orders, know when sales came in, track fulfilment and keep the process manageable without a large ecommerce system.

There was also an opportunity to extend the story beyond the printed page. Because the book involved birds and sound, the digital layer could support the reading moment itself, giving children a way to participate while an adult read the story.

The public site introduced the book and gave visitors a way to purchase it. Behind the scenes, the ordering and backend workflow helped the author and artist see incoming sales, manage fulfilment and keep track of orders.

Alongside the book, I created a soundboard that could be used while reading. As the adult reads the story, children can trigger the sounds of the birds that appear in the book. The soundboard creates a small shared interaction between adult and child, making the reading experience more playful and participatory without distracting from the story.

This project shows the systems side of my practice. It was not only about designing a public website; it was about creating the supporting digital structure around a creative product: sales, fulfilment, content, publishing and a companion experience.

It also connects to my wider interest in guided digital layers. The soundboard acts as a small digital layer around the book, supporting a shared reading moment between adult and child.

Maggie McGees helped clarify how digital systems can support physical products and story-based experiences. The website and backend made the practical side manageable, while the soundboard showed how a small interactive layer can add participation and atmosphere around a printed object.

That same thinking carries into my current work: the digital layer should support the real experience, not replace it.