Octane Media » 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.

Alabama Grand Ole’ Pumpkin Patch

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:10:06 +0000

If you live anywhere near Birmingham, AL or have travelled interstate 65 to or from the Alabama Gulf Coast, you have surely driven through Clanton, AL. As you pass through Clanton, you will notice the big peach-shaped water immediately aside the interstate. Clanton is known for peaches and they do peaches in a big way. Clanton does other things the same way, BIG. The Alabama Grand Ole Pumpkin Patch has been one of those traditional BIG attractions. The farm has been open to the public for many, many years. Octane Media has been fortunate enough to work with the family ownership for the past few years. They have a booming business and use the website to leverage their item price lists, upcoming events and more. The website is essential in keeping the community up to date on the happenings within the farm.

This is the second revision of the website we have built for the pumpkin patch. The first version was built using the WordPress platform. The staff was happy with the look and performance of the WordPress site, but desired a site that was more easily updated and managed. We opted to create a fully custom platform based on a custom content management system built to their specific needs and computer skill level. This makes the process of keeping the website updated VERY simple.

This site is built on Microsoft ASP.NET MVC 3 with a SQL Server 2008. Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 quickly serves up all of the pages.

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.

B&B Classics WordPress

brit — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 11:47:59 +0000

B&B Classics owner, Billy Utley, got in touch with us to help them publicize their business. These guys build some amazing vehicles and they needed a website that was up to par with their car designs. They also needed the ability to offer a few select products for sale on the website. We crafted a solution based around WordPress. A custom theme was crafted which included product and category pages for the e-commerce products. Please check out the site to see the result, plus they have plenty of eye candy on the site to keep everyone entertained.

Wide Open Design’s New Ignite Site

brit — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 03:15:15 +0000

When contacted by Wide Open Design, of Murfreesboro, TN, it became evident from the onset that this website was not going to fit the mold of a normal off-the-shelf website platform. The inherent inclusion vehicle projects, current news, an ecommerce store, and advanced project attributing are seldom found in a single product, and when they are found coexisting, the implementation is often lacking in user experience. Enter, our Ignite Platform.

The sole purpose of the Ignite Platform is to provide a firm foundation on which to build your website. This platform is especially beneficial to a company who is able to deliver upon their competitive advantage through their website. There is literally no end to the options available with this platform.

We feel the results speak for themselves on this one. If you have a minute, please click on the screenshot to the left to check out Wide Open Design’s new Ignite site.

WordPress for BirminghamLandscapingServices.com

admin — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 03:47:12 +0000

We were recently approached by Mark Schroeter of Schroeter’s Landscaping to help them with their website. They are a major landscaping firm in Birmingham, AL and specialize in amazing stone work. We jumped at the opportunity to work with a company growing at such a rapid pace. We went around the block to chose the platform for this project and all roads pointed to WordPress. It worked great for managing their landscaping projects and keeping the current news coming in at a rapid pace, almost as rapid as their business growth. If you’re in the need of Landscaping in Birmingham, AL, don’t hesitate to give them a call. I’m sure you’ll be as impresses with their designs as we have been.

Alabama Grand Ole Pumpkin Patch – Clanton, Alabama

brit — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:46:24 +0000

We are proud to be on board again this year with the Grand Ole Pumpkin Patch in Clanton, Alabama as they look to spread the Fall joy through great food, hay rides, children’s games and best of all giant pumpkins. We will be making some changes to the site this year to show off some of the new activities. If you’re a pumpkin fan, please check out the best Alabama pumpkin patch around.

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.