Johanne Courtright moved into agency WordPress work in 2011 after leaving Dreamweaver and static HTML. Early in her career she leaned on Advanced Custom Fields, custom post types, and integrations with CRMs and APIs. Over time she shifted into heavier development—PHP, JavaScript and, more recently, React—driven by the need to extend WordPress and solve practical agency problems.
Adopting Gutenberg
Johanne began using Gutenberg soon after it arrived. Learning React was the biggest technical hurdle; she accelerated that learning with courses and real projects. Integrating blocks into legacy agency workflows that relied on ACF created friction at first. Later, while at an agency, she and a small team built a reusable core set of blocks and gradually moved toward a fully block-driven approach. When she started Groundworx she committed to “100% Gutenberg”: minimal jQuery, full use of Interactivity APIs and React, and modern block-first patterns.
Why Groundworx exists
Groundworx (groundworx.dev) grew out of frustration and opportunity. WordPress Core delivers a solid baseline, but agencies need pixel precision, finer breakpoint control, refined color systems, responsive behaviors, and UX efficiencies Core doesn’t provide by default. Instead of replacing Core, Johanne builds enhancements and new blocks that fill agency gaps—augmenting core blocks and offering reusable, performant components and templates.
Philosophy: modular, flexible, low-footprint
Her approach favors very light themes driven by theme.json, minimal CSS/JS, and moving functionality into plugins or blocks so clients can swap themes without losing features. Keys and structure stay consistent so a new theme is often just a different set of values (colors, fonts) rather than new keys. Blocks are HTML/CSS flexible—grid-friendly and movable—so a single block can support many layouts without rigid markup.
What Groundworx delivers
Groundworx provides two primary offerings:
– Core block extensions: Enhancements to built-in blocks that add agency-friendly features such as breakpoint-aware settings (tablet options, multiple heading/paragraph sizes), responsive controls, different column counts per breakpoint, reverse stacking, full-height sticky group blocks, and better media/video performance.
– Custom blocks: Blocks that solve recurring needs—accordion and tab systems that convert at chosen breakpoints, media/content split sections, card blocks and reveals, and a navigation suite built for agencies.
Navigation rework
Johanne rebuilt navigation to share a single HTML structure across breakpoints instead of duplicating mobile and desktop menus. She uses a custom post type to store menu block compositions so the same content renders responsively in multiple places. While she preserved useful Core behaviors, she adjusted HTML and interactions to allow vertical full-height menus, accordions within menus, and consistent fallbacks. These navigation blocks use the Interactivity API for behavior without heavy JavaScript frameworks.
Design and UX priorities
Key priorities for agency workflows include:
– Branding presets: Named color palettes and keys let editors pick brand colors easily, with component-level overrides when needed.
– Breakpoint control: Agencies often need more granular breakpoints than Core offers. Groundworx exposes options, while noting CSS techniques like clamp() and theme.json can reduce the need for many per-breakpoint settings.
– Ease of use: Minimize choices for typical editors while exposing fine controls for designers and devs to avoid overwhelming users.
– Performance and maintainability: Keep markup and CSS lean, prefer minimal JavaScript, and use Interactivity API patterns instead of duplicated markup or heavy frameworks.
Views on Core, page builders, and adoption
Johanne prefers building on Core’s vision instead of layering another platform on top of WordPress. Page builders such as Elementor or Divi solve problems for their audiences but often produce markup and CSS that are harder to theme consistently and can add bloat. Gutenberg aims for lighter markup intended to be themed without aggressive specificity.
Adoption remains a challenge. Moving from classic WordPress or third-party builders to block-based development requires a mindset shift. Many agencies find the learning curve and new conceptual model daunting. However, teams that commit and reverse-engineer block patterns see long-term benefits: cleaner markup, easier theming, and reusable patterns that speed projects.
What she wants in Core
Johanne would like more extensibility in theme.json—specifically the ability to define additional named variables or custom keys so blocks and patterns can read them instead of injecting custom CSS variables. That would streamline brand systems and reduce custom CSS.
Ecosystem and discovery
A recurring pain point is plugin and theme discovery. Johanne argues the WordPress directory needs better search, categorization, and metadata for block-focused plugins and patterns. Metadata indicating Gutenberg compatibility, Interactivity API usage, or jQuery reliance would help developers and buyers. Better curation and meaningful categories would grow the block ecosystem and help businesses compete.
Commercial realities
Groundworx started because Johanne uses and enjoys it; she’s pragmatic about revenue. Selling blocks is possible but not a guaranteed windfall. The block ecosystem is maturing, and product efforts are increasing, but discovery, packaging, and buyer readiness are still evolving. Her advice: solve real agency problems, ship quality solutions, and document them well.
Where to find her
Groundworx is at groundworx.dev. Johanne is active on X (formerly Twitter) and prefers that platform for WordPress community interaction. She welcomes feedback and engagement there.
Closing
Johanne’s work shows a pragmatic path for making Gutenberg more agency-friendly: extend rather than replace Core, build flexible low-lock-in blocks and patterns, keep themes light, and push for better tooling and discovery. For agencies that invest the time to learn block patterns, the payoff is cleaner markup, simpler theming, and repeatable components that speed projects while giving editors solid control.
