Congregation Knesseth Israel is located in Bound Brook, NJ.
After our family joined the temple, I became head of the Publicity committee, and took on the job
of redesigning and maintaining the temple website.
Snapshot of the site's front page
The left-hand navigation buttons allow navigation through the site. When a visitor goes to a section of the site with sub-pages, those sub-pages will appear as an expanded set of links on the left.I also tried out a new feature on this website: "quick-links" to the Calendar, Directions, and Contacts appear on the upper right of every page, so visitors need not search around for them.
The Cook Student Organic Farm operates under the Community Supported Agriculture model. Shareholders pay the an annual membership fee to cover the production costs of the farm, in turn, they receive a weekly share of the harvest during the local growing season.
Our family joined the CSOF for the 2002 season, and we were very
pleased with the variety and quality of the produce we received.
When I found out that they had a website languishing (see
previous design), I volunteered
to redesign it.
I reorganized the navigation links, moving them to the left, and added new sections for vegetable recipes and information about the current growing season.
I chose a background texture which resembles a plowed field, and set up a "logo" with the farm's name and a picture of the crops.
In 2008, the Farm Advisor requested a new design for the website. I gave it more of a "farmstand feel" by broadening the palette of colors (the picture of vegetables and the orange banner), adding a box featuring the list of each week's harvest (with a vegetable background) and using garden stakes for the streamlined list of links on the left.
One of the pages in "About Our Farm" is a set of photos which uses a CSS-based photo album, allowing the user to mouseover a set of thumbnails and view each photo.
The Rutgers University logo and seal have also been added to the front page.
This website (still undergoing development) features the pen-and-ink artwork of Scott Thomas.
Snapshot of the site's Gallery page
The Gallery of artwork is divided into three sections: Sketches, Pen & Ink, and Color.
I used CSS to position the "Scott Thomas" graphic on the border of the two background elements (gold and parchment).
Members of the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc.) research and recreate aspects of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
I have been a volunteer member of the SCA.org webteam since 1996, and was appointed as Webmaster in 2005. At the start of 2004, I did this interim redesign of the front page while the webteam works on the long term solution.
The previous
design (courtesy of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
had the navigation links in a table that had become overloaded with choices.
New "important" notices were added at the top of the page, pushing
the link table down below the fold. The navigation links at the top and bottom of each sub-page
had 14 entries, making it difficult for visitors to pick out the one they needed.
Snapshot of the site's front page
There are now just 9 main navigation links. Subheadings for each link help to guide visitors.
Links for Newcomers and On-line Membership are prominently featured, without have to list them above the main structure.
The left-hand sidebar is used to highlight notices, announcements, and new features.
Each sub-page on the site is "branded" with a smaller version of the shield, and
now has a more manageable 8 navigation links at the top and bottom.
The Pennsic War is an annual SCA event with over 11,000 participants. I have been the webmaster for the event since 2003.
The website contains a great deal of information; the challenge was
to make the data easily accessible without any one page being overwhelming.
(See the
previous
design, courtesy of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.)
Snapshot of the site's front page
The front page of the site contains registration deadlines and important notices, updated constantly in the lead-up to the event. The picture on the left changes every few seconds, showing scenes from the event.The navigation bar appears on all sub-pages, to give quick access to the most commonly visited sections of the website. To help visitors find their way around the site, each sub-page has a "breadcrumb trail" of links at the top, which shows how they got there, and allows them to backtrack.
The Site Directory page is the heart of the website, containing organized tables of links to all sections of the site. The site-wide search feature also allows visitors to quickly locate information.
Medieval illustrations appear on many of the pages.
The Barony of Settmour Swamp is a local chapter of the SCA. I have been a member of the group since 1983.
I first put up a website for the group in 1996, and continued to update and expand it until I turned the job over to my successor in 2005. The current site includes listings of group activities, information to aid newcomers, links for historical research, and details of the history of the group.
Snapshot of the site's front page
Features on the main page include a Search button, the Site Map, and "What's New", which shows which files have been updated.
Most of the subpages on the site are "branded" with a standard left-hand column containing the group's arms and navigation links.
All subpages on the site have a top bar showing the
"breadcrumb trail" that the user followed to get there. The
user can click on any part of the trail to return to previously viewed
pages.
Kingdom Crusades is an annual SCA
event drawing about 1000 attendees. I ran the event website for 2003 and 2005.
I used the pennon and shield graphics from the 2002 event website (with permission), and carried the blue and gold color scheme throughout the site. The navigation column on each page of the site allows visitors to quickly locate information on the various aspects of the event.
"Die Schlachtschule"
(The School of Battle) is a group that studies medieval combat manuals and
recreates combat practiced by knights of the period.
The website contains an overview of the group's training curriculum, plus links to similar schools of combat, source manuscripts available on the web, and suppliers of practice weapons.
The graphic title and navigation box appear on each page of the site. The color scheme was selected to compliment the look of illustrations from the medieval manual. The text font is Garamond, a font used by printers in the 1500's.