Octane Media » Featured Projects

Ignite SXSPerformance.com

admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:54:00 +0000

More information coming.

BlueTorchFab.com Ignite Platform

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:00:18 +0000

The motorsports marketplace has its own challenges somewhat different from other industries. We work from a master product / part number relationship. We have high demand for very descriptive product listings. We also have the need to list literally thousands of part numbers, all quickly searchable. These are just some of the challenges facing store owners today, but one of the most prominent issues is shipping. Previously, we ran a customized version of OS Commerce for the BlueTorchFab.com website. That platform was limited in how effectively it organized products and part numbers and it was very limited on how accurately it could estimate shipping and handling for orders.

Enter, the Ignite Platform.

With absolutely zero limitations, we were able to completely customize the Ignite platform to meet VERY, VERY specific requests. Just some of these requests were mentioned in the previous paragraph, and even more are in the works as you read this. One of the major benefits of the Ignite platform is the ability to respond to ANY market demand by implement specific features not available to other platforms.

Currently, the BTF site serves thousands of products daily and makes money hand over fist for the company.

CRAWL Magazine WordPress

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:40:52 +0000

In the world of off road recreation and competition, CRAWL magazine has an immediate reputation. Nearly unbelievable photography, well written content and that great non-corporate feeling all contribute to a bi-monthly publication that is read several times over in most off road enthusiasts homes. It was a great privilege and thrill to work with such a dominant periodical to develop this website. The goal of the website is obviously to sell the magazine. In between issues, the website features updates on ongoing project builds, competition coverage, and even event videos. The website works hand in hand with the magazine to produce a “sticky” experience, taking the users deeper into content they first see within the printed pages.

CRAWLMag.com also features a fully-stocked SWAG store where you can purchase all of the CRAWL branded merchandise you can carry.

This website runs off of WordPress and features a custom theme which dynamically responds to the visitors screen size and device to present the most content possible as quickly as possible.

Goolsby Customs Website

brit — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:25:10 +0000

This site has been a very long time coming. For any of you that follow the custom car (or Grand Touring) scene, you know who these guys are. Their 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle has been in the media quite a bit as of late. You can check out their site for more information on this project and others.

The biggest challenge of this project is that we wanted the user interface to be adaptive to different device resolutions. So, if you were viewing on a wide screen monitor, you would get a slightly different layout making better use of your wider screen. At the same time, this site needs to be viewable on standard 1024 wide displays and mobile devices. We accomplished this by building a sliding column to the right of the main column. When the browser is resized smaller, the right-hand column slides into the main column and that content is displayed further down in the page (only on the home page). If a visitor comes to the site with a narrow monitor, the right-hand sliding sidebar never loads up and the user doesn’t notice the sidebar missing. This ensures a good viewing experience for all users, on all devices. For a demonstration, pull up GoolsbyCustoms.com and resize your browser. You will have to get it to round 1280 px wide to notice the sliding sidebar.

WordPress for Magnum Ink

brit — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:38:24 +0000

While doing some official industry research (better said, “surfing the forums at Pirate4x4.com”), I came across a company making a big splash in the custom screen printing world, Magnum Ink. The shirt designs I saw were both innovative, grungy and clean at the same time, something very hard to pull off with one creative work. I couldn’t help but reach out to them in hopes of putting a website out for them that matched their design style.

With products as innovative as those created by Magnum Ink, it was important to present those products up front. To accomplish this, we constructed a very unique layout that displayed the artwork proofs on the very front page. This type of layout creates some problems.

Problems created by this type of layout:

Different screen resolutions (and thus, browser sizes) wreak havoc on displaying the artwork proofs in a symmetrical flow. When the browser resizes, the artwork proofs would normally be lost in the overflow or the grid would go from three columns to two, or worse they would cause a horizontal scroll.
With smaller viewports (ie. browser window size), the right columns (news, company info) would be lost or not cause a vertical scroll.
Artwork proofs don’t scale

How we solved these problems:

By using custom, but standardized Javascript and CSS we progressively enhance the HTML layout to cause a vertical scroll and affix the right column to the top right if the viewport width falls below 960px. This assures that the layout stays readable and usable on smaller computers, including the newly popular netbooks. The design also continues to maximize the size of the artwork proofs on these smaller browser layouts. You can verify this by resizing your browser while the Magnum Ink site is loaded. As the resolution lowers, notice how the proofs resize and the right column affixes to the top right.

We greatly enjoyed working with Magnum Ink on this project and are looking forward to a long lasting relationship as their company and products explode into the custom clothing market.

Faith Racers Ministry WordPress

brit — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:31:10 +0000

The brain child of Andre Pene, the Faith Racers ministry has grown into a vital asset for motocross events all over the Southeast. Andre prepares monthly “Life Lessons” that often relate to the sport of motocross. The impact that this ministry is having on the MX racing scene is apparent at ecah event.

Andre contacted us in hopes of getting a quick website built that looked good, wasn’t overly expensive and was easy to update. Enter, WordPress, the same software on which our OctaneMedia.com site is built. The site was deployed onto a Linux server with PHP5 and utilizing MySQL for data. The entire site, graphics and all was deployed within a week, keeping costs low.

Rated X Motorsports

admin — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 04:41:55 +0000

Client: Rated X Motorsports

Location: Santee, CA

Project: Ecommerce Website

Website URL: www.RatedXMotorsports.com

This was one of our first custom ecommerce websites. Rated X had some specific requirements that prevented use of an off of the shelf package, so putting together a custom solution better served their needs. They actually have two websites, both featuring their own products and content (photos, etc.), but are both managed from one admin interface. This vastly simplifies updating the site.

Technologies used in this project are ASP.NET, SQL Server 2000 and standards compliant HTML and CSS.

Hutter Performance

admin — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 05:16:58 +0000

Client: Hutter Performance
Project: Website Redesign
Website URL: HutterPerformance.com

Octane Media was contacted by Hutter Performance with a request to bring their online presence into the “new media” age. Our main objective was to create a content management system for them which supported embedding HD video, race team biographies, and project vehicle biographies. Hutter specializes in high end modifications to Corvettes and other LSX powered vehicles. In order to demonstrate their experience and focus in this market, we put together an Adobe Flex application called “Corvette Builder”. This online application provides the ability for the user to build their own package of parts and send it to the Hutter sales staff for a personalized quote. The Flex framework adds some familiar features of desktop applications such as drag and drop as well as state management.

The site features a fully featured, secure content management system which can be used to manage all of their products, race teams, project vehicles, and high definition videos. The videos are hosted on a social media video sharing site called Vimeo. This reduces hosting costs and provides another outlet for their video content.

Technologies used in this project are ASP.NET, Flex, Flash Video, Google Maps, jQuery, and standards compliant HTML and CSS.

2008 King of the Hill Video

admin — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 04:23:17 +0000

Client: Rocket City Rock Crawlers
Website URL: www.KOTH4x4.com

Now shipping!

The cost for the DVD is $24.95 + shipping and applicable sales tax.

Special thanks to the following for their help in this production: Jimmy Mansell (Videographer), Richard Eppes (Videographer), Forrest Ledbetter (Videographer), John Hall (Videographer), Kristin Mansell (Boss Lady)

ChildrensDDS

admin — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:16:29 +0000

The overwhelming direction given to this project was, “make it fun”. Understanding that this site was geared toward children’s dentistry gave us the opportunity to design the look of the site in a way that would appeal to children, but still provide the necessary information for their parents.Incorporating the aquarium design elements allowed us create a theme for the site that was both unique and unobtrusive. It also created our “fun” feeling that lasts throughout all of the pages in the site.

Ease of updates was also a major requirement for this project. We created a fully featured secure administration site for which the client can use to update their locations, doctors, photos, and other aspects of the site. This is a fully custom admin section that only displays what is necessary and makes updates very simple. If you are reading this, you have enough knowledge to use an admin site like this.