New BACA website

I finally finished upgrading the Beacon Arts Community Association website, and it went live this past weekend. As many of you know, I’m also a part-time technology consultant (more on that in another post), so this project was a perfect fit in terms of my technical know-how and my fine art photography. I volunteered to redesign the site, and it’s been a great learning experiece. It’s allowed me to become involved and meet more people in and out of my arts community, as well as make a good contribution. The website that was in place was already a great asset, and this new upgrade will provide many more features and growth for the future. There’s lots happening in Beacon these days, so I definitely recommend anyone who is local to check out the scene on any second Saturday of the month for new gallery exhibits, and special events.
For those interested, here are some technical details for the site…

I decided to use an excellent open source content management system by Joomla, which seemed perfect for this type of site. I wanted an easy way to manage lots of content such as news items, events, schedules, and also allow others to contribute content without having any knowledge of html or web design. I also wanted a site that would be easy to modify in the future, whether changing the look and feel, or the adding additional functionality such as mailing lists, forums, etc. Joomla seemed like the perfect solution, and it was relatively easy to setup. I also added wysiwygpro, an enhanced html editor with great features, and mosListMessenger to manage the mailing lists.