Several decks of cards laid out to help with the overall design.

The Poker Runs America Promo was created from the full length DVD which has many robust features to include the media package created for it that was not included in the promo. The promo was intended to both promote Poker Runs America as well as promote some highlights of the full length DVD. The design concept started with several decks of cards. Once those cards were studied then recreated in Adobe illustrator. Once created in Illustrator the files were prepared for import to the 3D program. The final elements were assembled in After Effects for lighting and comnpositing. The final product was professionally scored. Feel free to see the screenshots taken during the development of the promotional video.

Image BlackSmith LLC was hired to produce a commercial DVD for Poker Runs America. In the process a logo animation and media package was created for use on the web and the final DVD. What began with a brainstorming session looking over various decks of cards progressed to adobe illustrator where the already existing logo was brought in and prepared for export to the 3D program. The final render was included in the full length DVD now being sold by Poker Runs America.

Facebook Cover to match BriteSide Studio Branding.

Updated branding of BriteSide Studio to include social media. Emphasis was placed on continuity and brand recognition.

Website Branding

Website Branding for BriteSide Studio

Facebook Branding

Facebook Branding

YouTube Branding

YouTube Branding

Twitter Branding

Twitter Branding

Video Still of helicopter shoot over Cape Coral, FL

From shooting out of a helicopter to using professional lighting and audio capture with an on camera talent for the interviews, Image BlackSmith provided professional video services to properly capture all the events around the 2012 Cape Coral Poker Run for Poker Runs America.

The shoot was over two days and included helicopter aerials, interviews and footage of the events around the races. The footage is destined for the web and DVD. While the footage has yet to be edited for its intended use please view a few of the screen shots as a sample of the work provided. The footage was shot in full HD and color corrected before the screen shots were prepared. Take a minute to view the short behind the screens time lapse view from inside the helicopter.

3D wire-framing of company logo for animation

Central Broward Construction contracted Image BlackSmith LLC to create a custom commercial video. We started with pre-production, concept, storyboard and completed the post production which included sound scoring, special effects, 3D animations and incorporating company provided assets to help tell the story of CBC. The production side of this video lasted over a nine month period which included the time-lapse of the store and commercial photography to use in the animations. There were a lot of challenges to the production portion of this project as there was a demolition then building of a new store all occurring simultaneously. The challenge we were presented with was keeping the cameras focused on one spot long enough to make a meaningful and effect time-lapse that fit into the storyboard. From considering satellite images of the site to Google street-views we were able to properly prepare to capture the elements of the time-lapse which included over 28,000 individual images.

Photo Restoration was completed for an animated image.

Additionally, 3D versions of the company logo were prepared and animated where a client provided image was used to recreate seamless sea shell tiles in photoshop that could be used to map the 3D planes. Many of the assets, particularly the historical images of the company, needed to be scanned, photographed and treated prior to inclusion. One of the main images required significant photo restoration before it could be prepared for animating. While there are many intricate elements to this project, like an in-depth storyboard and shoot log that guided us through the project, we just highlighted a few items of the project to underscore the level of work provided to ensure an effective and meaningful final product for Central Broward. Feel free to view a few more snippets and screenshots of the project below.

Video still of an interview with a boat manufacturer

Image Blacksmith LLC was contracted by Taylor Publishing to film interviews of the major boat and boat component manufacturers for the 2012 Miami International Boat Show. Over the course of four days we were able to capture not only the interviews but also the sights and sounds of the Miami Boat Show providing the video capture in full HD that can be later used for web and DVD by Taylor Publishing. Feel free to see additional video stills below.

CBC Logo Recreation

In creating the commercial video and logo animation for the CBC project we were faced with some minor issues. As it stood CBC had no defined logo file to work from. They had a logo but it was mostly represented on the business card and company literature. This meant the logo had to be recreated. In assessing what we had to work with, we started in Adobe Illustrator to create the base outline of the bricks that would be acceptable by the 3D program. We also had to determine the font used in the logo. Having adobe’s entire font catalog of over 2,700 fonts at our disposal helped. We were able to run software to identify the font which we had on hand.

Bricks prepared for logo recreation

Once the logo was brought in and assembled in the 3D program, textures, lighting and shadows were created as well as a trowel brought in to match the samples of the logo provided by the company. Once we were comfortable with the recreation of the logo and the client approved its design, we continued to create the floor and walls to complete the scene. The company provided images of materials they wanted to be considered. While images cannot be used easily as 3D skins and textures we were able to use the images provided as a guide to recreate a seamless image in Photoshop suitable for use in this 3D scene.

3D Version of the Compenny Liquidators Logo

Original Logo as created by Image BlackSmith LLC

Image BlackSmith LLC creates 3D Logos for print or animations. This 3D render was created to be used both in the header of the Compenny Liquidator’s website as well as in an animation of their logo. What started as a sketch became an original logo in Illustrator. Later that illustrator file was prepared for acceptance into the 3D program. Once the Illustrator file was prepped it was imported into the program. In the program the ground plane was established and the materials were slowly added to create the intended treatments to give the logo its realistic look. The final step was to add the lighting and shadowing for the finishing touches.

Building materials and lighting in the 3D program

This schematic gives a snapshot of how WordPress works.

WordPress comes in two forms. The original and well known blog version hosted at WordPress.com with limited features and the powerful, robust, self hosted websites provided by Image BlackSmith LLC and widely used by well known organizations like Yahoo, CNN, Sony, Nokia, TechCrunch, eBay Ink, and Samsung among a long and ever growing list of WordPress users. With a wide range of powerful features such as user activated accounts where users can register and interact with other users on your site, WordPress provides a full and powerful website package. (See the schematic on the left illustrating some features available in a self hosted WordPress website.)

When consulting with clients and potential clients there are often a lot of questions around websites. With so many options then people and organizations providing services on varying levels of skill and quality. To help draw a clearer picture of where we are with web standards and how WordPress fits into the picture lets start with short history of web presence. The first website was published on 6 August 1991. Compared to today’s websites a lot was to left for the imagination. But after many failed attempts to get online, CERN’s project by physicist Tim Berners-Lee, who also created the first Web Browser, had finally delivered us the chance to share information via the world wide web. This immediately followed a period of web design that is more amusing than it is admirable.

Before Hamsters began selling cars they were moving websites. Luckily they moved on.

For starters not many people knew how to make websites and there were relatively few resources. (Who can forget The Hamster Dance? Featured in the 1999 Earthlink internet provider tv ad, it almost epitomizes the time.) Before viable research on user behavior and web specific tools it was a time when getting anything online was good enough. User expectations for any standard was relatively low. The combination lead to sites often crammed with useless amateurish features placed on the site for no real purpose other than it was a newly created feature. From JavaScript to animated GIFs and flash intro splash screens; it was generally a smattering of anything and everything.

A more detailed snapshot of how WordPress works under the hood

While there were many obstacles to providing substantive and easy to navigate sites we’ll just highlight the ones important to understanding why WordPress is right for you. Most early sites were based on simple HTML and tables limiting design capabilities. The biggest was due to styling of the elements on pages having to be hand coded making it difficult to maintain consistency and with large sites changes meant changing each page. This brought the implementation of Cascading Style Sheets or CSS allowing global site changes and more importantly much more flexibility. People still build sites using just XHTML and CSS. We refer to these sites as static or brochure sites. These sites only provide information with little to no interactivity and require an understanding of code to update. To add to the downfalls of simple websites is that its barely SEO compatible. While flash only websites can be interesting in their visual design they are not recommended for meaningful website deployment for the same reasons of simple sites with the added issue of not all devices supporting flash sites its often that an elaborate flash site is nothing more than a background and a message to download flash player to the user.

WordPress's User friendly interface allows for easy rearranging and updating site menu items.

Enter content management systems (CMS) like WordPress. CMS changes the equation by giving you a user friendly interface to update your site. However, its built on a database. This allows user interactivity and advanced features like shopping carts, commenting and user accounts to name a few. Updates can be done in-house using any computer with an internet connection. This saves money as you don’t need a web designer for every little update including adding images and content. Most importantly, updates are SEO compatible allowing you to reach a wider or targeted audience as your updates are automatically pinged to publishing services.

When it comes to CMS the main choices are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Lets cut to the straight numbers – the latest report from The 2010 Open Source CMS Market Report shows WordPress with 938,625 downloads per week and 12.9% of the web market (currently over 70 million sites are based on WordPress CMS). Joomla was significantly lower at 113,836 downloads per week in 2010 with 2.5% of the market (and about 27 million total downloads). Finally, Drupal stood at a distant 33,671 downloads per week and 1.4% of the web market. Based on the plethora of resources for WordPress alone gives it an edge over the lather options. This just allows for better options across the board for site features and support.

Updating your site is easy with the WordPress user interface.

We’ve seen the numbers now lets see the important part, the ease of use. You’re busy running a business, pushing a product, promoting a service or even yourself. Frankly, you are not a web designer or developer and you have no intentions of becoming one now. Once your self hosted WordPress site is set up you will be free to add your own content with ease from any computer with an internet access. Its as simple as loging in and posting either a new post or a new page. You can even change and rearrange menu items with the user friendly WordPress interface.

Great! So WordPress is an easy to use and update site. So what you ask? Yes there’s more. It comes down to SEO compatibility. Sure there are tricks and gimmicks out there and they all become obsolete but one thing never does. Consistently providing relevant information to your audience never becomes obsolete. You cannot do that with a static brochure site and you certainly are not going to achieve that with a flash site, they almost don’t exist in the world of search engines. With tags, categories and a plethora of SEO assisting tools at your finger tips and good old fashion consistency in providing good and relevant  information, you should be able to reach your organizational or personal goals. While there is more to SEO than just adding content and tagging it you are miles ahead of static sites and flash only sites with WordPress. If you are a developer and you’re not up to date with WordPress head over to WordPress.org. If you need someone to bring your business or organization up to date you’re in the right place. Contact us for a consult.

We call it rapid website because we start with already existing structures and customize them to meet client needs. In this case we took time to find one that had most, if not all the features required. We ended up with one of our preferred WordPress theme creators WP Zoom. We insist on using themes by approved vendors because there are bad themes that just don’t work well and the time to fix them defeats the purpose. Our goal is to complete sites that allow customers to take full control of their site in a timely manner. We prefer vendors that offer built-in support for their themes and WP Zoom is one such vendor.

With any website the challenge is to first identify the needs of the organization and then finding a website structure with as many of the needed features built in already. This reduces the time it takes to create or customize the structure to meet these needs while leaving more time to focus on the overall presentation and branding. Once we found an acceptable structure we began the installation and most importantly the training necessary to allow our client to operate their site.

Site features: optimized, secured and customized.

• CMS based (WordPress)
• Self hosted
• Cross browser tested
• Site meets client’s inventory needs
• Database optimized
• Settings configured
• Permalinks customized for SEO optimization
• Contact form created
• Advanced plugins installed
• Categories structure established
• Tags structure established
• Full security measures taken to secure site and database
• Back up system put in place for content and database
• Vulnerabilities addressed with standards compliant measures
• Training provided to allow customer full control of site content
• Automatic submission to major search engines for each new content submission
• Site can be updated from any computer with internet access
• Google Analytics implemented

View the screen-shots of the site features below and feel free to visit The Compenny Liquidators and check out their quality new and pre-owned furniture. They deliver throughout South Florida as North as Port St. Lucie West to Naples and South to Key West.