Last week I introduced a super simple cms system that I created for a client. Ever since I completed it, I have been toying with the idea of expanding it a bit and releasing it as an open source tool for other freelancers, developers, and designers to use.

The “business need” is simple…as a freelancer, I want to make my services as valuable to a client as I possibly can. A good “value add” is a CMS system so that I can pitch to a client “you can update your own static pages”. I have been successful with this because in the long run it saves the client money because they don’t have to pay a designer/dev every time they want to change a word or two. Its a win/win.

So I was thinking…I know I am not the only freelancer doing this so why not take my little CMS and expand it to suit that exact need? A basic CMS that can be deployed to a client quickly and easily, but then gets the heck out of the way and that I, the designer/developer, have complete control how it looks and behaves.

I have noticed that since I wrote the original article I have gotten a good bit of interest on the subject so it seems like there is a market for such a product. The question is…what are the basics?

When you think of CMS what are your requirements?

Here is an obvious one…Add/Update/Delete pages…

Not much of a CMS if it can’t do that, but what other features are required?

Another way to ask it is “If you were to create your own simple CMS for a client, what would it do?”