The Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Development Group (MVL CDG) was tired of fighting with their Joomla website. They wanted something easy to use and they knew it had to be mobile friendly.
This made my decision a simple one to make. We used WordPress with a responsive & mobile friendly theme which I customized to fit their specific needs. The MVL CDG even provided a professionally prepared style guide to help me craft the design and colors.
As the online presence for tourism, economic development, and event information for the residents of both Lisbon and Mount Vernon the website had to be friendly, engaging, and coordinate easily with their actively managed Facebook and Twitter social media accounts.
The prime real estate at the top of the page has a rotating banner that promotes a select number of the most recent posts from the News section. The most recent news items are always top of mind with the viewer.
The robust calendar of events has an upcoming event list component that was placed prominently at the top of the right hand sidebar. The full events calendar is given its own menu item next to the news menu item in the main navigation menu.
A series of professionally produced videos highlighting the community were easily embedded into pages of their own and given their own menu at the top of the site to highlight them.
Many times the biggest challenge is to keep the site as simple and focused as possible by not loading it down with all of the numerous legacy features that were no longer needed or used.
The client and I debated and refined the site to stay true to its core goals. This sort of give and take between developer and client is something I enjoy because we are both working towards creating the best website possible.
