Website Redesign for Camp Ramaquois
Camp Ramaquois is a premier day camp in Pomona, New York, welcoming kids from nearby Manhattan, New Jersey, and several adjoining counties in New York state. They promote themselves as a day with a program every bit as complete as a full-summer, overnight sleepaway camp and they have the facilities to back it up.
Summer day camps are an institution in New England and competition is particularly fierce outside of NYC. Many parents view them as necessary, but interchangeable, making it difficult to stand out. Ramaquois' the best and wanted people to know it immediately whichever piece of their marketing they encountered first.
The home page (full responsive) leads with the camp's small but genuine lake — a major selling feature in the tight real-estate market of southern New York state. Direct copy makes it clear who needs to be very interested in the camp while smiling faces sell the benefit.
Touring a camp is a required step for any family considering sending a beloved child to camp for the first time and the home page was designed to be a complete pitch for the camp, leading up to a prominent CTA in the footer.
Primary Navigation
Following their engaging home page, Ramaquois wanted prospective families to be able to drill down to specific content for their family and child quickly. The camp consists of three major divisions — Junior Camp, Girls' Camp, and Boys' Camp — so I suggested we use those as the first three options in the persistent primary navigation. Clicking or tapping on a division allows a visitor to immediately being learning what the camp offers them or their child.
Favorite Details
At the bottom of most pages, the next link blends in with the footer. A Get Started buttons lives persistently on the left side of the viewport, granting impatient (or convinced) prospects quick access to direct communication with the camp.
Ramaquois also manages their own server, database, and a large collection of forms in-house. In order to keep their applications and other online documents consistent with the brand, they requested basic CSS styles for form fields, which I designed and the development team at Ronningen Design delivered.
Finally, I worked closely with the lead developer to create a rising cascade of bubbles that overlaps the content (thanks to a blend mode) and communicates the constant energy of summer days at Ramaquois.
