Cargo Collective is one of the many websites available in the vast market of CMS platforms (content management system). Along with Squarespace, Wix, WordPress etc, CMS platforms aim to simplify the website building process and provide the end product and the tools all in one single browser page. Cargo Collective stands out among others because it’s used by most graphic designers and photographers. This is perhaps because Cargo’s approach to CMS is to keep the interface minimal. It lets its users come up with designs, instead of limiting them to rigid website templates. Its base interface allows users to define custom dimension columns and grids and relied extremely on finding an appropriate composition. Therefore only users who are already familiar with layout design will feel comfortable using it. To combat this, Cargo released templates with grids already formatted with certain dimensions so users with no prior graphic knowledge would be able to just fill in text boxes (similar to squarespace). Cargo also allowed a certain amount of its CSS code to me modified for the advanced users to fine-tune some of the settings like <hr> divider colors and widths. This dual approach to be inclusive of experts and beginners using the same underlying interface is how Cargo was able to set itself apart from competitors, while allowing a high degree of freedom to designers who uses the platform.
