Topic: Church Youth site

I'm working on the website for my church's youth group. So far it's not much to look at content wise, I'm more interested in your opinions design wise. Also I'd like to know if it doesn't look right in certain resolutions and/or browsers. So far I've only tested it on FF 1.0.7 and IE 6 on Windows XP at 1024x768.

Known problems:
In IE: Menu is clipped if it passes the copyright (or bottom of 'mainframe'). [FIXED]

I would like the copyright to stick to the bottom. I know how I can do that with tables, but, umm, you know my position on that. Any ideas on this?

FBC Youth: http://youth.fbcwm.org/

C&C



(Edited by zavaboy on 02-17-2006 00:38)

(Edited by zavaboy on 02-17-2006 01:31)

(Edited by zavaboy on 02-17-2006 01:48)

http://www.pmob.co.uk/temp/2colmac.htm I think may give you some help.

Ha! You got me hot off my Church Websites 101 workshop last Saturday at our Presbytery's Church Leader Development Day. Apologies in advance if my residual enthusiasm takes me too far.

First, simply because you have a site for the youth group, (presumably) designed and administered by a member of that group, deserves huge recognition. Very few churches go beyond a casual mention that they have a youth group. Kudos!

I know you're looking for design comment, but since my workshop was on content, I'll leave design and tech issues to others.

Nitpick Speling: Page 'O Pics should be Page O' Pics. The apostrophe substitues for a letter (f).

When it comes to content, spend some time seriously thinking about audience. If it's to be sort of an clubhouse for existing youth group members coming only from the existing congregation, then stop now and don't bother with the rest of this.

If your audience includes outsiders--the unchurched, new people to the community, those unsatisfied with their present church, or even the local press, (you do send out press releases, don't you?)...

Or if there's any sort of mission, outreach or evangelism component involved...

the particulars of church name, address, contact info and probably when the group regularly meets, should be on every page someplace. I lean towards the header, but any consistent location will do. Google guarantees that every page is an entry page, so basic identity content (not to be confused with "branding") belongs on every page. Even so, some visitors will miss it and that information needs to be replicated on a top-level page in the menu structure.

The most often forgetten thing I see in every church web site is: Why? Why should I attend this event? Why should I join this church (or group)? And, why are these people doing this?

Answer "Why?", keep indentity content prominent, and with nothing else, you'll be head-and-shoulders above the rest.

Thanks!

I made some changes:
- Fixed: Page O' Pics
- Added: church address to top

Still don't know how to get the copyright to stick to the bottom properly. The example Nathus gave confused me.

You can change #copyright in your css to the following to get it to stick to the bottom of the page.

#copyright{
padding-top:5em;
padding-bottom:1em;
font-size:75%;
text-align:center;
color:#999;
position:absolute;
bottom:0;
width:100%;
}

I would also add a padding-bottom of 7em to the body so you won't have any overlap. Though 7em might be a bit much, I'm just basing that off of the padding you have in the copyright.

Nathus: That doesn't work. It stays in that one position and doesn't get pushed down as content grows.

Oops. guess I was tired when I posted that.

Anyway. Is this what you're looking for? Its for a project I'm working on right now.

http://www.smith-web.net/naterealtor/
http://www.smith-web.net/naterealtor/index2.html

Yes!

After a few hours of fiddling, I realized that min-height is important for it to work.
Thank you!