Ottawa & Calgary Web Design + WordPress + Drupal + Social Media + iPhone Apps | Armadillo Studios Inc.

This post has been re-posted from Armadillo’s President’s personal web site as it touches upon a subject that we’re currently very interested in. We hope you enjoy this post and if you have any questions feel free to contact us at any time.

I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but when talking about the advancements in campaign technology and design one cannot underestimate how much Barack Obama’s campaign team has brought to the industry. Whether it was the revolutionary techniques and concise planning employed by the campaign team in 2008 or the impressive data-driven objectives set out by the 2012 re-election team. Either way the ground work laid out by The Obama campaign machines in both elections has ushered in a new era within the political world and has essentially set the standard for the importance of a candidate’s online presence.

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A couple of weeks ago Team Armadillo released a new side project, AlbertaTweets.ca, to an incredibly positive reception. Born out of our interests as political junkies and data nerds, this new project is an exciting step in a new direction for the team.

As avid data and political junkies, we had been contemplating doing a project which would involve twitter data and some sort of visual data analysis. Over the past two years, we’ve been attending a variety of conferences which have delved into the realm of web data and the political spectrum. Then as rumors of a provincial election started to surface, it seamed like the perfect timing. Hence the birth of AlbertaTweets.ca. (Read More…)

Today, January 18th, Team Armadillo is joining hundreds of web sites across North America in blacking out in support of the anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA movement.

And while it’s great news that SOPA (The Stop Online Privacy Act) has been shelved by Congress for the time being, it still doesn’t address some of the underlying threats towards the web industry in North America. It’s a step forward, but governments north and south of the 49th parallel must show a greater understanding of the importance of this emerging industry.

As mentioned, Armadillo Studios will be turning five on August 31st. To celebrate five great years of providing top-notch web design services to the masses, we decided it was time to redesign our ever popular Armadillo Stickers.

Since 2008, our initial run of stickers has been a massive hit with everyone. We’ve shared them with friends, clients and numerous associates at a variety of networking events. And like any good batch of stickers, they’ve “randomly” appeared on the back of laptops, toolboxes and exotic locations all over North America. (Which is something we would never encourage… well, at least not publicly). But as we continue to move forward, we realized it was time for a bit of an upgrade.

So with that, we present the 2011 edition of our much beloved stickers.

Printed by our good friends at JakPrints on their gorgeous vinyl stock; this latest rendition once again places Milo, our company mascot, front and centre. This design has incorporated a unique five year crest to give the stickers a more retro feel. This new crest features the company name, web site address and also five subtle stars. The five inner ring stars, alludes to our very first branding scheme, the Armadillo Star, and also represent a single year of existence as a design outfit. With this edition we’ve also included plopped our name and web site address right smack in the middle of the design. This of course, is a pretty novel idea that was glaringly missed in our first sticker incarnations. And as always out stickers leverage our unique mint green and chocolate brown colour palette

We’re really proud of how these edition turned out and we look forward to sharing them with everyone

So How Do I Get My Hands on Some Stickers

Simple, just send us a note!

If you’d like a batch of stickers, get in touch with us through our twitter account (armadillostudio), our Facebook Fan Page or just contact us through our main web site. If you’re really keen and willing to share the Armadillo Stickers love, we’ll forward on a nice batch straight to your door step.

Mike’s Bloggity Blog is easily one of the most popular Entertainment blogs in Canada. Winning numerous awards for his posts covering the ever growing Canadian television and pop-culture landscape, Mike’s Bloggity Blog reaches more than 20,000 readers a month. (and growing)

Earlier last year, we had the fantastic opportunity to work with Mike on the first redesign of his site. It was the first step in the site’s continuous evolution, one in which the site transitioned over from it’s humble roots at Blogger.com to a self-hosted professional entity. And now this week, we’re happy to showcase the second iteration of Mike’s Bloggity and a new era for this fantastic site.

Earlier in January, I had the wonderful pleasure to finally go and visit Calgary’s only Coworking Office – CoWorkyyc.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of Coworking, it is essentially a shared office environment which individuals (or small businesses) can rent out in monthly or daily rates. It’s a collective place which allows small businesses and individuals to move away from the isolating confides of their living rooms to a shared space with like minded individuals. The concept is not new by any stretch of the imagination, but it is becoming quite a popular trend for consultants, freelancers and up and coming tech companies.

As mentioned, after numerous failed attempts, I finally got the opportunity to visit CoWorkyyc in the heart of Inglewood’s growing design and technology centre. Two of three owners, Quienton and Jeff, were my hosts for the day and showed me around the operation. After talking with them for much of the day and spending a very productive day of work, I was throughly impressed. I have been a major supporter of the project since I heard about it’s inception, but had never had the chance to check it out.

Luckily everything lived up to it’s billing and more.

The CoWorkycc office is a warm and inviting space with a bevy of open desks near the front. Near the back a selection of more private spaces for some of the more long term tenants are available. Nestled in a corner at the at the front is a comfortable round-table, which is perfect for that all important client meeting or conference call. At the very back of the space is a kitchen containing the critical coffee machine and a private shower, for those looking to bike to the office. And last but not least, a trip to CoWorkyyc wouldn’t be the same with out admiring the fantastic paint job which adorns the brickwalls. You may need to ask Quienton and Jeff, about that portion of the tour.

Anyways, if you haven’t had the opportunity to check out CoWorkyyc or just looking to find a productive work space, please do get in touch Jeff and the rest of the team, you definitely won’t regret it.

It’s been quite the week here at Armadillo Studios, as our beloved pet project – yycApps.com received an incredible amount of local exposure over the past 7 days.

It all started about a week ago with a six minute interview on CBC Calgary’s the Homestrech with David Grey. We had a great conversation on the blossoming community in Calgary and I was able to feature some great local apps. (click here to hear the full interview)

Next, yycapps had a feature segment on last night’s edition of GlobalTV’s 6:00pm news. In which, we briefly talked with Tony Tighe about the project and also showcased our friends from TapForms and also Broken Kings. (See the segment below and fast forward to the 23:55 mark)

It’s been an exciting week for the yycapps project and we look forward to seeing how the project continues to grow.