Designed and coded a heritage-driven website for a Bay Area rowing club
Responsibilities:
- Web Design
- WordPress
- Frontend
- Content Strategy
- Art Direction
- Image Optimization
- Board Leadership
Outcomes:
A custom-built home for a whaleboat club with more than four decades of history, designed, coded, and maintained by me as a volunteer and board chair.
Case study
Rowing with history#
The Embarcadero Rowing Club (ERC) has rowed whaleboats on San Francisco Bay for more than four decades. These aren't slim racing shells: they're one-ton, 26-foot boats built for lifesaving and whaling, rowed by a crew of ten. The club is a nonprofit and a member of the Bay Area Whaleboat Rowing Association.
I joined ERC's board in 2023 to lead recruitment. At the time the club was faltering, with about 18 members, and was thinking of selling boats. I built a Learn to Row program, used metrics to track what worked and what didn't, and worked with coaches to build and tailor the program. ERC is now the largest club in the association, with more than 70 members. I also worked with club members on a handbook and code of conduct.
Today I serve as chair of the board, helping the club get tax-exempt status and rebuild its competitive racing program. The website is one of the ways I give back to the club outside my day job.
Design and code#
I designed the site and coded its custom WordPress theme. I chose the content and visual style to match the club's historic feel: archival photography, like the club's boat Renegade on the Embarcadero in 2002, photographed for a BAWRA calendar cover, and press clippings, like a 1991 newspaper story on the Alcatraz race, sit alongside the practical information a new rower needs.
The design draws on the club's life on the water. Navigational maps are based on NOAA's nautical charts of the Bay Area, with handmade SVG graphics for the shorelines. A maritime typeface feels old-timey but stays legible, and the palette uses the club's team colors.
The site is organized around the reasons people come to the club:
- Racing, recreational rows, fitness, and Learn to Row each get their own page, so newcomers can start from what interests them.
- History, media, and a calendar give members and visitors a sense of the club's past and what's coming up.
- A clear path to join, including dues, plus donation information for supporters of the nonprofit.
Behind the scenes, photos are served through an image CDN that automatically resizes and compresses them into modern formats, so the archival photography stays fast on a phone at the dock. I've since used AI-assisted coding for small refinements.
An events app for members#
I also built ERC Rows, the club's event and race management app. You can read about it in its own case study.
You can visit the site at ercrowing.org.