Armadillo Studios Inc.

Seenster Alpha Goes Live

Two weeks ago, the Armadillo Team made the hour trek up to great wilderness of Banff for the latest rendition of “DemoCamp Calgary”:http://barcampcalgary.com/2009/06/03/democampbanff-in-two-days/ at the “nextMedia conference”:http://www.nextmediaevents.com/banff/. The team was up there to support Cameron Rout and the live alpha demo of the “seenster.net”:http://www.seenster.net project.

As the about page describes; *seenster.net* is for independent musicians who bootstrap their efforts on their own dime, the Prolific Compilation Card is a recommendation tool that gives artists the opportunity to get paid for recommending music in real life, at their gigs. *Unlike Last.fm, iTunes, and Myspace our product brings the social music network into Real Life to sell recommendations as a tangible commodity*.

The Armadillo team was proud to help Cameron with design tweaks and some back-end modification to get the product into a live state. In the future we’ll be working together to really enhance the product and get out of the dreaded Alpha state and into the more sensual Beta state.

If you are curious about the project or would like to get involved either follow the “team on twitter”:http://www.twitter.com/seensters or email Cameron directly at “cameronrout@seenster.net”:mailto:cameronrout@seenster.net.

yycPhotobook.com

With the advent of online collaboration, it’s amazing at how fast a simple idea can go from a random thought to online collaboration to web site launch. Take our newly launched “yycPhotobook web site”:http://www.yycphotobook.com as an example.

After being approached by “Duncan Kinney”:http://www.duncankinneyblog.com, of “yycBlogs”:http://www.yycblogs.com fame, to take on the task of designing the layout for the new collaborative/crowsourcing photobook project – “yycPhotobook”:http://www.yycphotobook.com we quickly went to work on establishing a home base for the project. Utilizing a simple black, pink, and white color scheme and inspiration from Italian outfit “loveleft’s”:http://www.loveleft.com/ stunning use of typography, we have created a simple informational site to spread the word to calgary’s growing photography community.

Armadillo Studios will continue to post entries on the progression of the project, from the initial meeting to the development and publication of the project. So check back shortly.

Dynasty Auto Glass Goes Live!

Late last year, the new owners of Dynasty Auto Glass approached Armadillo Studios to develop a new web site for the long standing Calgary icon. They wanted to create a unique online identity, which separated them from their competitors and also embraced their long standing independent status within the community.

So today we are happy to add “Dynasty-autoglass.com”:http://www.dynasty-autoglass.com to the growing list of Armadillo Studio Web sites.

Combining Dynasty’s established branding, Armadillo Studios has developed a unique and bold layout for their new web site. The new web site embraces a retro feel by utilizing fonts that mimic a vintage local dealership and by incorporating Polaroid templates to showcase images of the shop. As an added bonus the design also utilizes Veer’s fantastic “Calgary Script”:http://www.veer.com/products/typedetail.aspx?image=UMT0000326 to give a subtle nod to the local community.

Design wise, the site embraces a simple navigation with an enhanced sidebar, which links directly to the “company’s services”:http://www.dynasty-autoglass.com/dynasty-services/#ag and it’s location on Google maps. We have also moved the layout away from the stereotypical boxy feel, associated with most of their competitor’s web sites, to a rounded aesthetic.

And as an added bonus, Dynasty Auto Glass is offering a *$10 discount on Windshield Replacement* to celebrate the launch. (See the new site for more details)

Now that’s a win-win.

Spectrum Land Services Launches

Four months ago, Armadillo Studios was approached by Dean A. Gould of Spectrum Land Services to develop a new online identity for this local Oil & Gas consultant firm. Always eager to take on new opportunities, Armadillo Studios has spent the past few months working to launch a clean and simple web site which emphasizes the company’s professionalism and experience.

Because of which we are happy to announce the launch of the new web site for “Spectrum Land Services Ltd.”:http://www.spectrumlandservices.com

The new web site for Spectrum Land Services Ltd. is designed with the end user in mind. It provides a concise a list of services, contact information and a detailed profile of Dean A. Gould’s experience. The new site also embraces the unique branding of Spectrum Land Services and features the logo throughout the design to enhance the firm’s new image.

We are pleased to have worked with Dean A. Gould and thrilled to add the Spectrum Land Services web site to our growing portfolio of Oil and Gas clients.

WordPress 2.7 Integration

As a quick note to our customers.

After testing the latest WordPress for the past month, Armadillo Studios will be upgrading all of our CMS-based web sites to latest 2.7 release.

As the CMS of choice for all of our projects, the newest version of WordPress is a far more intuitive upgrade to it’s predecessor. (To be honest, we really “thought 2.5 and 2.6 were pretty dramatic improvement over the previous versions”:http://blog.armadillostudios.ca/article/wordpress-25 )

You can watch this video from WordPress.org for a little bit of a walk through for the changes or you can skip below and read some of our initial reasons that you’ll love the new system.

* *Stronger Security Features* – The New WordPress 2.7 fixes many of the security vulnerabilities found in WordPress 2.6 or 2.5. Which is essentially a roundabout way of noting that your site will be less susceptible to being spammed.
* *A More Intuitive Interface* – 2.7 has a far more intuitive design, which allows users to edit pages and create posts with less clicks.
* *QuickView Function* – This is a new addition to the WordPress Interface and essentially allows you to toggle comments, pings and other information straight from the list of posts/page. Again this is an element of a more intuitive Interface, but it is a quicker way to edit your posts.

If you have any questions regarding this upgrade, feel free to contact us at any time. We’ll be happy to answer questions you may have.