Capitol Battalion Sea Cadets

[Fireproofgfx]

I have been slowly working on this site for the last several weeks as part of a free service to help out the group that my oldest son is apart of. You can see what they originally used here. My goal was to set them up with CMS capabilities on the POD and POM pages among others, which will be updated regularly. I also set up a calendar through google. There are still a few more things I need to change but for now it is good enough to share.

On top of needing to get this done I have been working 6 days a week on my "real" job, leaving at 1:30am and getting home around 3pm so I haven't had a lot of time to dedicate toward the site so I might have rushed and missed things.

[RDesignista]

I think it looks okay.

I feel like navy blue and grey are a dull combination. So, if you could sneak in an accent color, that'd do wonders for the the eyes. Maybe complementary orange? Or a bright blue?

I noticed you have a translucent container. But it doesn't really do much since the background is just camo. If you want some kick butt naval photos, I might recommend US Navy's Flickr page. It's Creative Commons and they seem to have a good photographer: Flickr: Official U.S. Navy Imagery's Photostream

Also, interesting idea to do this for free. Talking with a bunch of developers, I noticed that a lot of them do free work for organizations that their kids are a part of.

[TheGAME1264]

I don't think you can sneak another color in there, Ron. Given that they're the cadets, they're pretty strict and regimented. About the only other color they might allow is a red...and even that's kind of iffy.

It looks simple and clean enough, and given that it's volunteer effort it's not bad. A few things I noticed:

1) "Donate" is incomplete.

2) You'll want to bring over as much of the content of the original site as possible (not the layout, but all of the PDFs, etc.) in case people are looking for them and for SEO reasons.

3) I'd look at a lightbox script or something rather than the Flash thing you have for your photos now. You have to assume in this case that more than the average number of people will be looking at the site on phones and tablets given that it's a personal site. I'm not saying that because I agree with it, by the way...using a cell phone for Internet purposes to me is like using a toy hammer to drive in a nail. I hate them. But they're reality.

4) Your Plan of Month copy needs to be updated, unless ANYTOWN is a real place.

The Plan of the Month is an official document of ANYTOWN Division and Training Ship ANYTOWN. Its contents reflect current orders of the Commanding Officer and official unit announcements. All Division personnel are responsible for reading and understanding the information contained herein. Parents and guardians of Cadets are encouraged to read the Plan of the Month and to make note of meeting days and special announcements that may affect personal schedules.

Other than that, it's all good with me.

[Fireproofgfx]

Thanks gentlemen for your replies. I would have rather have gotten paid for this just like any other work I do, but I believe what goes around comes around.

The colors are pretty set, although I do see where you are coming from RD. The background idea is a good idea as well.

As for the Donation, POD, POM and the resource materials, they are unfinished and will be edited by the person that will be taking on this roll. Also the gallery I use is Svbuilder Pro which I ended up paying for since I liked the functionality and it is simple to use. It has a non flash setting which I thought I checked. You have told me this on several other sites I put up for review so I am trying to avoid the "flash" aspect of it. I will have to change it. Although the images show on my Iphone so maybe it just looks like flash lol..

[TheGAME1264]

...and I'll keep telling you until you LISTEN, goddammit!

[RDesignista]

RE: Gallery
Maybe it' a non-flash fallback? Or it detects certain devices and shows the plan B option?

I personally use Flickr feeds for my clients just because Flickr is too dang easy to use. Also 1TB of space free. I haven't come across any other solutions that are as simple as the solution I use. Just want to share.


RE: Color
Oh and yes, color-wise, I thought I might just ask.

It's good that they have you to help their organization. A lot of organizations for kids I noticed have awful websites.

[noodles415]

Really not a bad site for a rush job with little flexibility. I like it