Feature Article

Armadillo Studios and Drupal Camp | Sep 7, 12:57 PM


We are excited! … Correction.

We are incredibly stoked to be a bronze level sponsor of Drupal Camp Alberta this September 11th and 12th at the University of Calgary.

Armadillo Studios & Alberta Drupal Camp 2010

This is the first time in it’s three year history that Drupal Camp Alberta will be held in our hometown. So to recognize such a great step forward for the Drupal community, we thought we’d provide a bit of sponsorship and a hand for this merry band of Lethbridge designers.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Drupal Camp concept, it’s essentially a two-day tour de farce for everything Drupal.

The sessions are designed to bring the growing Drupal Camp community together to share ideas, techniques, tools and strategies that make this CMS one of the most powerful tools in the Web industry. Through Drupal Camp Alberta, we are hoping to see a stronger more tight-nit Drupal development community emerge in this fine city. The team at RedWall and Lethbridge Web Design have already done an exceptional job of fostering the community down south and we look forward to seeing them in our hometown.

If you’re planning to attend Drupal Camp Alberta, keep an eye out for Team Armadillo’s own Drupal Ninja – Ryan Boley. He’ll be in attendance this weekend and would love to spend some time talking everything Drupal.

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The Lazy H Ranch Project | Jul 22, 08:32 AM


The second of our big releases this month is a property site for The Lazy H Ranch.

Lazy H Ranch: Property For Sale Vail

Earlier this month we were approached by Howlyn Properties to help them create a new site to showcase a vacation ranch property for sale near beautiful Vail, Colorado. They wanted to keep with the structure of a previous property site, but build upon the structure to make it more appealing to their selling demographic and to provide key information to potential investors.

www.ranchforsalevail.com

We set out to create a rustic western colour palette with dark browns and tarnished yellows for the new site. Then we imposed some lumography photoshop elements on selected photos to give them a vibrant nostalgic feel – with a goal of showcasing the down-home western comfort and livability which exudes out of The Lazy H Ranch property.

The next step was to build upon the chosen site structure, by incorporating a simple jquery image slider and a fancybox gallery for the photos of the property. Each of these enhancements was developed to showcasing the lush qualities of this stunning property.

Lazy H Ranch: Ski Locations Map Creation

The final major enhancement to the site was to build customized Google maps which would give users a true understanding of the location of the property in relationship to amazing wealth of winter and summer activities in the Vail Valley. We built custom maps to showcase the world class ski hills and top notch golf courses in the area.

Over the next few weeks we will be working with Howlyn Properties and their Realtor Team Black Bear, to tailor the SEO components of the new site and to help promote the property to potential investors.

It was a pleasure to work with both companies and we wish them all the best with the project.

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Taylor Made Events Catering Launches For The 2010 Stampede | Jul 20, 08:43 PM


A few days before the 2010 Calgary Exhibition and Stampede, Karjsa Taylor of Taylor Made Events Catering came to Armadillo Studios with a small conundrum. She was showcasing her new catering talents at The ATCO Kitchen Theatre and needed a quick online presence to connect with potential online customers.

So cue Team Armadillo to help a new friend in need.

Taylor Made Events Catering

Within such a quick turn around time, Armadillo Studios went about creating a unique and professional branding concept for Karjsa, while developing a simple and informational splash page to promote her unique catering services. Using a soft red, rosa and brown colour palette we developed a branding for TMEC which would appeal directly to her target market. We also leveraged a couple of interesting photos of her exquisite Lamb Burgers and Karjsa herself, to connect potential customers to the catering services.

Taylor Made Events Catering - About TMEC

After a successful Stampede Showcase, we wish Karjsa and Taylor Made Events Catering all the best during the busy summer BBQ season.

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Armadillo Invades Digital Capital Week | Jun 14, 06:33 AM


From June 11th until the early morning of June 20th entrepreneurs, designers, social media enthusiasts and techies from all over the D.C. region are descending on the American Capital for Digital Capital Week.

And Armadillo Studios will be there.

Armadillo Invades DC Week

DC’s Digital Capital Week is ten-days of New Media goodness. The event is attracting attention from developers, designers, media thinkers, and NGO’s alike. There are a variety of events planned for the week and Armadillo Studios will be in there full force. If you happen to be attending Media 2.0 day, Social Media & Gov Day, the 140confrence or even the closing party, keep and eye out for us.

But more importantly, Armadillo Studios will be partaking in the always popular ProBono Lounge on Wednesday June 16th. The ProBono lounge teams designers, developers and strategists with local nonprofits and government organizations for an afternoon of collaboration. Because of which we will be providing our expertise and advice for a couple of local non-profits to help fine-tune their online strategies.

So if you are in the D.C. area for Digital Capital week and happen to see Team Armadillo at one of these events, don’t be afraid. Drop by and say hello. We’d love to meet you.

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Facebook Fan Page Fan-tastic | Jun 1, 10:52 AM


It is with great pleasure that Armadillo Studios announces our new Facebook Fan Page.

Armadillo Studios on FaceBook

As you can see our new Facebook Fan Page is a fully customized site, which aims to show the playful side of Armadillo Studios and to also demonstrate the potential power of the Facebook Fan Page. We built all the elements of the Armadillo Studios landing page using FBML (Facebook Meta Language), a new cannon of design code which allows page owners to dramatically enhance the Facebook experience for their fans.

But Why Launch a Fan Page Now?

Some of you may be asking, why is a Web Design and Social Media outfit only jumping on the Facebook Fan Page bandwagon now?

To answer that, let’s look quickly at the Facebook platform.

When Facebook first started gaining some traction with the college crowd, it created a unique subsection for people to organize called Groups. As everyone now knows, Groups allow up to 5,000 users to band together to show their admiration for a wealth of topics. But the major flaw, with Groups, is that it was quite difficult to connect with your followers. Without a constant level of interaction between groups and their followers, most groups faded into the distance.

Now fast forward to the beginning of 2009 and Facebook is set to launch a new system called Fan Pages.

New Video of FaceBook

Fan Pages are Group pages on steroids – no limits on membership, the ability to post new content directly into your fan’s activity stream and the ability to customize the layout. When they first launched many organizations made the switch instantaneously, but one of the hidden elements of the new customizable elements was the ability to create new pages using FBML (Facebook Meta Language).

In recent months, FMBL has undergone a series of dramatic enhancements to the point where those who are familiar with the language, can now utilize this new tool to fully customize the Fan Page experience.

FMBL and The Future of Fan Pages

It’s because of the evolution of FBML that we felt it was time to create a new identity for the company on Facebook.

With FBML, organizations can now build a unique identity on Facebook which is akin to their own goals – something that will standout from the competition. These tools now allow users to create their own mini-web sites within Facebook. And with the unprecedented growth of Facebook in certain demographics, it is now more important than ever to make a great first impression.

Because of these developments, we believe that Facebook Fan Pages are going to be a powerful new tool for companies and community organizations. And while we think our own page is pretty darn fan-tastic, here are some examples of what can be done with Facebook Fan Pages:

So don’t just take our word on it, some of the biggest players in the internet industry are already taking note.

Fan Pages & Your Company

The beauty of Facebook fan pages is that they can built for a fraction of the cost of a regular web site and they also allow you a direct connection to your fans (via streaming your updates directly in to your fan’s stream). So if you like what you see with our own Facebook Fan Page, send us a note at info@armadillostudios.ca.

If you get in contact with us to develop a Fan Page by July 15th, we’ll give you an introductory discount of 20% on our development rate.

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