The Armadillo Studios Blog

A Glorious List of SXSW Panels Who Would Love some Lovin' | Aug 20, 11:20 AM

Last week we posted about our own panel Are You There Social Media, It’s me Conflict, but this week we are here to talk about other proposed SXSW panels for 2011. In particular, proposed panels that we think you should help support.

So here’s The Glorious Armadillo List of SXSW Panels that you should give some lovin’ to.

Web Designers & Developers, Renaissance Artist of Modern Times – This panel from Alex Lemanski, a friend of Armadillo’s and the organizer behind the successful Leave Your Job, Start An Agency panel, is designed to look at the connection between the modern day freelance designer and developer with Renaissance Artists. With such an influx of technical panels for 2011, this definitely looks like a refreshing take on the industry and how we can better understand our working relationships.

Live Like a Spy: Designing on the Road – Rachael and Travis Gertz, a very cool designing power couple from Calgary, traveled the US in their Winnebago Walter for most of last year. Designing, blogging and experiencing North America in a truly unique fashion. This year, they are going to talk about their experience and how to sustain a comfortable lifestyle outside of the typical cubicle and what running a successful freelance business is like on the road.

Healthcare Marketers Rejoice – IE6 is Long Gone – While many designers and developers have been calling for the end of IE6 for years, it’s no secret that many internal corporate applications and programs are still based on the IE6 framework. This panel will be hosted by Joe Doyle, a friend of the company and another one of the former panelists from the Leave Your Job, Start An Agency panel last year. I can guarantee it’ll be an intriguing and open discussion on this lingering, but hot button subject.

The NEW Web Typography: Where the Sexy Is – Jason Cranford Teague’s SXSW 2010 talk was easily one of the most intriguing and useful talks on the Web Typography movement. With another year change and innovation on the web typography front, his new talk looks to be that much more informative.

Social Media Data Visualization: Mapping the World’s Conversations – JESS3 is an amazing design and visualization outfit out of Arlington, Virginia. They’ve done some stunning work with Facebook, CNN and other outfits on information visualization projects and this talk looks like it will be another home run of a session.

Nontent: Is Smashing Magazine Helping or Hurting Design – Over the past few years, List Blogs and Second Tutorial sites have become prominent in the industry. But are these a good source of information for up and coming designers or are they dumbing down the creativity of the industry? This panel looks to examine this trend and get to the underbelly of it all.

So here six panels that have caught our eye. There are dozens of other ones scattered through out the panelpicker, so make sure you find the time to look around. And while you’re at it, we’d love it if you gave our panel a big thumbs up.

If you have any other panel suggestions, make sure you leave them in the comments and we’ll definitly check them out.

Topic: sxswi-2011 || collaborative-projects

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Louie Van Amstel's Ballroom With A Twist Launches | Aug 9, 08:31 PM

Armadillo Studios is incredibly excited to announce the launch of our latest project – The Canadian tour site for Dancing with the Stars’ Louie Van Amstel’s production of Ballroom with a Twist.

In conjunction with Calgary’s Event Group and Innovative Events, we set out to create a unique and exciting one-stop informational site for the upcoming 2010 Canadian tour. Building off the current excitement surrounding ballroom and professional dancing, we wanted to create a design aesthetic which encompasses the passion that Louie Van Amstel brings to all of his projects. Using a combination of bold pastel colors and a variant of glowing light streams, we created a vibrant mosaic to create a sense of excitement.

As a single page site, our next goal was to utilize as much of the screen real-estate as possible to provide users with the maximum amount of information. A dual column layout provides potential concert goers with a simple introduction to Louis Van Amstel’s production with an accompanying list of the 10 Canadian dates.

Then we created three secondary sections to promote the show’s star performers – Evan Lysacek and David Hernandez – while also allowing users to sign-up for email notifications on advanced ticket sales or to share the tour with their facebook friends.

Louise Van Amstel’s Ballroom with a Twist Canadian tour is set to launch this October and we are more than excited to be a part of this unique experience.

So, if you’re a fan of Dancing with the Stars or Louise Van Amstel, now’s your chance to see both in a city near you.

Topic: Client-Releases || collaborative-projects

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The Revamped U of A Ski Club | Jan 18, 09:26 AM

Ah! University. Sweet, sweet memories of University.

The Armadillo Team have some fine memories of our days in University and our time with the University of Calgary’s Ski Club. Many of these memories are fairly blurry, but they are rather fond one.

So when the U of Calgary’s sister club, The University of Alberta’s Ski Club, came to Armadillo Studios with a predicament we were more than happy to help. (Plus, we’d already gave their southern cousins a little bit of a makeover earlier this year)

First and foremost, the new U of A Ski Club Web Site is not an original Armadillo design; rather we’ve dramatically upgraded the structure and the skeleton of what they were left with.

The U of A Ski Club had a web site built by a third party, but was never given the information on how to update it or maintain it. Instead they were left with a static web site with no real CMS and no way of communicating with their beloved membership. This is unfortunately a common predicament in our industry and many clients in this situation approach us. So in came Armadillo to save the day.

Using the key elements of the original design to the site’s keep continuity, we rebuilt the web site using the WordPress Management system and even incorporated a few key design elements that were missing from the original site. Including links to Social Media elements, ShareThis Functionality, a Contact Us form and even a large beefy footer for simple navigation.

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be working with the U of A to further improve their web site and improve their web site’s usability. But more importantly, we hope the new site will help them get more involved with the student body and creating more fond memories for others.

Topic: Client-Releases || collaborative-projects

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The yycPhotobook Launches | Sep 9, 08:40 PM

It is with big grins that we are proud and extremely pleased to announce the first copies of the yycPhotobook have been published.

As mentioned in a previous article, Armadillo has been honored to team up with Duncan Kinney (of yycBlogs) to design and construct the yycPhotobook. And now that the book is completed, we are even more excited for the upcoming launch party on Sept 18th.

In regards to the actual design process for the book, the yycPhotobook team started by selecting a diverse collection of unique and engaging photos from a group of Calgary photographers. Next, we brainstormed a layout and order that would maximize the impact of each photo. We then assembled the basic skeleton of the book in InDesign using the easy to use templates supplied by“Blurb.com”:http://www.blurb.com. Keeping with the theme of the original web site; The yycPhotobook design utilizes the same crisp aesthetics associated with the minimalist web site. Each photograph in the book is given it’s own page with the author’s accompanying avatar and a short 140 character description of the work. In combination, this ultimately created a unique 40-page book that encompasses Calgary’s distinctive identity.

As mentioned, the yycPhotobook launch party is on Sept. 18 at Venturion (214 11th Ave. SE). There will be beer and wine for sale at reasonable prices and some light refreshments. You’ll be able to meet the contributing photographers and get a sneak peek of the book. The book will also be made available to the public through yycPhotobook.com and Blurb.com, on the day of the party.

Topic: Corporate-News || collaborative-projects

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Leave Your Job. Start An Agency. | Aug 17, 11:57 AM

A couple of months ago, Alex Lemanski of Bitfyre fame approached some of our mutal friends from previous SXSW Adventures about trying our hand at a panel for SXSW 2010.

As a collective we’ve already built the popular how-to guide SXSWisEASY , so it would only make sense to throw our collective hats into the SXSW panellist ring. So with that I’m happy to present to you our potential panel Leave Your Job. Start An Agency.

The concept behind our panel is simple. We want to provide an outsiders perspective on the difficulties of starting your own studio. We’ll address things like how to do transition from your solo Apartment/PJ set-up into a full on office? How to deal with arguing co-owners? How to find clients across different area codes? Pretty much every topic that someone would need to know if they were contemplating starting up their own business.

To paraphrase Joe, the idea of the panel is to get the real dirt on non-existent inter-office scandals and what to do when your partner doesn’t agree with you – there’s sure to be some heat in this panel. What else could you expect from three Americans, one Canuck and a Texan.

So this is where we need your help, if you’ve got a second and do plan on attending SXSW’10 in Austin, please log on to the panel picker and give our panel a big thumbs-up. Voting closes on Sept 4th, so be quick.

Topic: sxswi-2010 || collaborative-projects

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