I often say if you found out your local ‘favorite’ was closing people would flock there. As a ‘local’ business hoping to be a ‘favorite’ how do you convert this love into attendance. The language of The 3/50 Project really resonates with this struggle and communicates the idea without being combative with larger national business. The Elephant is loved but its always great to see him jump to the little mouse. Don’t sell out, buy in, en 2010!

Read the article or download a PDF.

MediaPack is the international packaging business magazine for content owners and the optical media industry—linking the producers of films, music, and games on disc with suppliers and creators of packages.

We Joined the WP train a couple years ago when we started blog Gamil, and have since learned how powerful it can be as a CMS system. Congratulations WP we agree, you’re awesome!

Below are a few sites we designed with WordPress CMS.

ABOVE: Our portfolio site is powered by WordPress

ABOVE: With WordPress SPARKcon  festival website was able to organize 50+ events & details leading up to and during the festival

ABOVE: WordPress was chosen for Triange Technology Executives Council website, because it is a great Open Source CMS

ABOVE: We chose WordPress for Blue Flame Tattoo’s website because of the ease to update the artists galleries

]]> http://www.gamil.com/2009/11/23/wordpress-open-source-cms-award/feed/ 3 http://www.gamil.com/2009/11/19/robyn-hitchcock-often-dream-trains-new-york/ http://www.gamil.com/2009/11/19/robyn-hitchcock-often-dream-trains-new-york/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:47:15 +0000 britt http://www.gamil.com/?p=1810

I Often Dream of Trains in New York DELUXE EDITION

Gamil Design worked with Yep Roc and Robyn Hitchcock to create a deluxe CD package for a limited Deluxe Edition of “I Often Dream of Trains in New York”. The classic looking CD package unfolds and transforms into a phenakistoscope, or moving picture machine. Original CD and DVD artwork can be viewed as animations through the included viewer. Gamil developed and produced the package concept, design and artwork. Each part of this deluxe package was made in the USA. This Deluxe Edition can be purchased at Yep Roc!

Robyn Hitchcock Deluxe Edition

Robyn Hitchcock Phenakistoscope Assembled

Check out the video below that Yep Roc put together showing the phenakistoscope in action!

Blue Flame Tattoo came to Gamil Design wanting a new website that was simple yet decorative, and able to accommodate large galleries for each of the artist. We designed a custom Wordpress theme which includes a homepage slideshow. Check out our portfolio site for more information on the project. or check out the new Blue Flame Tattoo website.

*SPARKcon showcases local creative talent in the NC Triangle. For four days, Raleigh’s Fayetteville St, public spaces, clubs and stages will be filled with art, music, dance, film, fashion, design, proposals, and more. Celebrating local cultural richness and empowering action through an open-source approach to collaboration and cross-pollination, SPARKcon is not a funded city program or an economic development stunt. It’s completely grassroots and by the people for the people! Join us as we explore the creative spirit of the Triangle!

President Obama had a town meeting in Raleigh today. He was at Broughton High School speaking about healthcare. For some of us who didn’t get to go to the actual meeting, standing on the street waving at the presidential motorcade was the next best thing.

Meanwhile, in very close proximity and under the street, city workers searching the sewer system with a video probe found this compelling video of a life form feeding off of the nutrients flushed by the cheery folk of Cameron Village.

It seems like it’s time for a showdown to see who REALLY owns the streets outside Cat Banjo.

After 12 days online, “Pixels and Bricks: Post-It Donkey Kong in Raleigh”  hit 50,000+ views on YouTube.
Here are 10 things that contributed to our lucky number:

1. Donkey Kong!…Everybody loves Donkey Kong! Little did we know that YouTube watchers also LOVE post-it notes, stop-motion and gigantism at least as much as we do! That perfect storm resulted in a video people wanted to view…and send to others.

2. A reason to create that had nothing to do with getting 50,000 views. In our case, it was a parade entry for Kirby Derby 2009, our neighborhood block party with a “Pity the Fool” 80’s theme. A vision got us started and a high giggle factor saw us through.

3. The perfect setting. Taking the characters outside to snap some pictures made us realize we were literally working right beside a Donkey Kong set. How could we NOT do something with that?

4.  I love it when a plan comes together…  Seeing the set got everyone’s juices flowing. We immediately created a story board, built additional pieces and got some (more) beer to con everyone (Gamil, Gamila, Fatcat Strategies, Thirdparty Labs) to stay late on a Friday evening to carry the characters through the shoot. Aside from the creation of Donkey Kong himself, the whole thing happened in one day.

5.Put it online when it’s hot. We had over 230 raw photos plus credits and music to be created. On the other hand, we had a short window of momentum from Kirby Derby aftermath. We chose to take advantage of that momentum rather than agonizing over quality, putting it online just a few days after the event. The Kirby Derby website, our friends, twitter and facebook connections, and a story in newraleigh.com got our numbers moving as soon as we uploaded the video.

6. Don’t compete with big news events or holidays. Oops -we didn’t listen to this bit of advice. Our video went online the morning after Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died. Our first week online was the week of July 4 holiday. We have no idea how/if that affected our numbers.

7. Have a high-traffic site –  lucky enough to get a LOT of national and  international gmail viewers daily. During the first week online, Donkey Kong was our top story. Our video reached the weekly 30th most watched in India, 50th in France, and 62nd in South Korea…who knew?

8. Spread the word to strangers who care -  through blog tip forms and twitter. We told all the big guys about it, but it was the smaller blogs (some gaming and some humor) that grabbed hold early. The first blogs that got serious traction (other than newraleigh.com) were The Daily What, Tumblr,  and a variety of other small ones, followed quickly by buzzfeed.

9. Spread the word some more. We made YouTube comments and video responses to related videos. We twittered about our success rate. We told more gaming blogs once our numbers rose higher.

10. Luck and chance. The combination of personal connections and viral momentum enabled the video to move past our sphere of influence very quickly. Eventually some slightly bigger blogs saw it, and today, Kotaku got hold of it (from Topless Robot and I Heart Chaos). In this one day, we went basically from 35,000 to 50,000 (and counting).

It’s been exciting to see what would happen once we released the video to the online community. Ultimately, the whole project was about having fun  through a little creativity. The fact that we got to share it with so many people has been an unexpected treat.

(We’d love it f you gave it a rating or comment on youtube. Click on the youtube logo to watch it there and then subscribe or log in. Thanks!)

Once we took it outside and admired our work from the lovely Humble Pie, we noticed that the railings of our next door building looked just like a Donkey Kong set. Naturally we had to spend the whole next day creating all the characters for our first-ever stop motion animation movie.

Here it is in the MEDIUM REZ AT VIMEO:
Pixels and Bricks from Gamil Design on Vimeo.
 

SEE IT HERE IN HI-REZ!

Special thanks to the staff at Gamil Design, Gamila Company, Fat Cat Strategies, and ThirdParty Labs.

Now that we got your attention – check out Gamil’s brand new website!