GemGfx: Quality Graphic and Web Design Outsourcing Solutions

Winner of The GemGfx iPod Touch Giveaway Gerrel Saunders

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:33:49 +0000

Ok we’re finally here and as promised we have a winner of the GemGfx iPod Touch giveaway.

Gerrel Saunders iPod Touch winner

First we would like to thank each and every one who hit the site to vote as well as to keep updated as to how the voting contest was going. We saw people getting the word out to their friends and loved ones to stop by and vote for them. We also saw a few new members signing up for accounts in our community. Thanks again to everyone including our finalist.

We had 365votes received in this competition, (One for every day of the year apparently) and the breakdown of those votes were as follows.:

iPod Touch Vote breakdown.

As you can see our winner by a clear margin is Gerrel Saunders. A talented graphic artist from Trinidad and Tobago who seems to have many people rooting for him. Congrats to Gerrel. You can connect with Gerrel on Twitter at twitter.com/gaksdesigns

GemGfx is doing it’s best to encourage creativity and participation in the creative process. We are trying to build a community where people can become inspired as well as inspire others to create. We could always use your help, advise and support. We will be having another competition soon, and we want to thank you for your participation. Continue to spread the word about GemGfx and let us know what we can do to help build the Creative Community.

GemGfx Admin

Bookmark It

Google Page Rank Update

admin — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 14:31:14 +0000

It seems that as a New Years gift Google has updated the Page Rank. Now it has been established that Page Rank is not the only thing one should consider when on the topic of SEO. There are many other factors such as content, keywords, and relevance that will affect where your page appears in a search engine. But it’s somewhat of a nice New Year’s day surprise to find that your site has jumped a few notches in the where Page Ranking is concerned.

In the case of GemGfx, we are now a 4/10 page rank and we’re comfortable with that. Bur we have had a pretty good positioning in all search engines even before we got this update. If you look for the term “Graphic Design Outsourcing Trinidad and Tobago”, we’re number one in the results in Google, Yahoo and even Ask.com. For the term “Graphic Design Outsourcing”, we’re in the first five results on Google. Again, we had this before we got the page rank update, so yes page rank is nice, but it’s not the most important thing for SEO and one should always remember that.

If you want to check your sites page rank you can use this cool tool:

Check Page Rank of any web site pages instantly:

This free page rank checking tool is powered by Page Rank Checker service

Or if you’re using Firefox or Explorer, you can download Google’s toolbar here and enable the page rank feature. Google appears to update their page rank about four times a year, so look for another update in the next couple of months.

All the best for 2010
GemGfx.com

Bookmark It

Featured Project: Spirit of The Radio

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:38:58 +0000

After the success of the Junior Claus and Dinner and Show projects, once again GemGfx was called upon to put together a branding project for The Directors Team over there in Minneapolis. This time we were privileged to be a part of the team with the responsibility of coming up with a Logo, Brand and Website for an 80s music formatted concert show called “Spirit of the Radio”. The concert stars one of Minneapolis’ own sons, a talented gentleman by the name of Pat Balder. We were able to work with Sam and his team over the hectic Christmas season, and we were able to come up with what some are saying is an outstanding show poster and design. I’ll let you be the judge.

The show is carded to come off on the Feburary 5th 2010, and promises to be a huge event. We once again extend our thanks to Sam and the team at the Directors, for the opportunity to create. If your interested in attending the show by the way, you can get more info and tickets by calling (320)-968-9995.

More projects on the way for GemGfx.

Bookmark It

Vote for our IPod Winner

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:05:49 +0000

Well December was more hectic than we anticipated. So we only recently had a chance to review our iPod giveaway competition. We honestly did not get the response we had hoped for and we were almost tempted to cancel the competition altogether. The promotion was intended to jump start our community and turn it into a vibrant one. We haven’t seen the volume of signups that we wanted.

Nevertheless, because we are such cool people here at GemGfx and we made a promise to give away an iPod, we brain stormed a bit and came up with a solution that will make the whole stuff a bit more interesting. We’ve chosen to exercise our reserved right to modify the contest at any time by doing the following. Here’s what we did. We looked at the members of the site who were actually active, who posted artwork and who gave shouts on the wire. Who linked their Twitter accounts to the community and what not, and we came up with a few people who we thought deserved a shot at the iPod. Call them “Finalists” if you will. These folks had some really great artwork, and contributed to the community in some substantial form.

We however could not come to a decision as to who was the most deserved of the iPod, so we decided to take the vote to the people. You will decide who receives the iPod. Here are our finalists.

Olivia Jones: Hi, I'm Olivia, a 19 year old, Graphic Arts major. I'm a really goofy type, and I get along with everyone.

Gerrel Saunders: Freelance Graphic Designer, Illustrator // gamer, into fine arts,student, Laid back dude, Cool Guy ..Contact me for anything

Martin Slack: GemGfx sure know how to make websites. Keep it up

Tim Brill. Brill Branding. Ex-Skater boy who wishes to reignite the punk rocker that now thrashes at me from the inside.\

One of these four finalists, will be the one to take home the iPod. Which one will it be. You decide. Vote for them with the form below.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

The finalist and their friends can drop by and vote for the candidate who they think is most deserving. It’s simple. The person with the most votes, wins. We’re ending off the competition on February 15th 2010 this time. So good luck to our four finalists.

Oh and yes, we want a lot of votes. Not 5 or 6, but 500 or 600. We want to give away the iPod, but our community must benefit. Cool? Cool. When this giveaway is done, we have another one in the pipeline.

Happy hunting.

GemGfx.com

Competition Update: We have a winner! Click here for details:

Bookmark It

GemGfx ready for 2010

admin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:16:07 +0000

When GemGfx opened it’s doors on a permanent basis in April of 2009, we never imagined the wild ride that we would be in for. We went from a fledgling company, to one that experienced amazing growth in a very short space of time. We did make some mistakes, we’re a young company so we expected that. We also experienced tremendous successes. All in all we are humbled and grateful for the year that has gone by. We want to thank all of our faithful customers for the opportunities afforded us to create, and we want to apologize to those of our customers to whom we were not able to deliver.

As we sit at the dawn of a new year, we are very excited at the thought of what 2010 will bring. We’re almost a year older, and just a bit wiser, or at least wise enough to know that we still have much more to do and a lot more to learn. We have many things planned for the upcoming year as long as the Lord gives us the strength and creativity. We Look forward excitedly to the challenges and successes that the new year will bring.

GemGfx has also undergone some changes. We have added a GemGfx Consulting which is a department that will be facilitating customers and potential customers with much needed direction, advise and expertise. Our creative department will also be expanding as we bring on board some new and brilliant talent. We will also be making available here at GemGfx some free resources and information that will be of great use to our customers and those interested in the field of Graphic Design.

We want to take this time to wish all of you a bright and prosperous 2010

Everard J. McBain Jr.
CEO GemGfx.com

Bookmark It

A Short History of GemGfx and Junior Claus

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:02:13 +0000

Several months ago we at GemGfx were approached by a gentleman by the name of Mr. Sam Graber. We were approached then to design and develop the branding solution for a rehearsal studio that their company, The Directors, was starting. The name of the studio would be “The Directors Studios”. GemGfx went to work and through collaboration with Sam and his team, came up with the now familiar brand for The Directors Studios.

The branded awning outside The Directors Studios

Shortly after, because it was thought that we did such a good job on The Directors Studios project, GemGfx was again approached by Sam to work on a project with a difference. We were introduced to an individual with wich we would later become intimately acquainted. We heard a story about the son of Santa Claus who would take over the responsibility of delivering presents to the world’s children because Santa had an accident and was nursing a toe injury. We were asked to create and visually represent this character. After a few head banging sessions, we finally presented Sam and his team with our representation of the character who would be Junior Claus.

Junior Claus Himself

Sam and his team loved it and Junior Claus got the approval to be the face of the upcoming musical. Over the next few weeks we developed several marketing materials for the show. Posters, flyers, website, online banners and so forth. Now we have come to the point where the show that we were given the opportunity to be a part of making, is about to see it’s opening night. On Friday December 11th 2009, at the Burnsville Performing Arts Center, Junior Claus will be introduced to the world. The show was created by Michael Kooman and Chris Diamond and features some of the best talent of the Broadway stage. Preparations and rehearsals have gone well and the show is expected to be a tremendous success. The show also had gotten quite a bit of press attention.

Michael Kooman and Chris Diamond

As always we can say that GemGfx was grateful to have been part of this outstanding project, and wish it all the success. We look forward to a long and profitable partnering with Sam and his team at The Directors. You can check out more about the show at the following links:

Junior Claus Website: http://juniorclaus.com
Junior Claus of Facebook: Facebook
Chris Diamond and Michael Kooman Website: http://www.koomandimond.com
Burnsville Performing Arts Center: http://stpaul.broadwayworld.com/
Junior Claus in the St. Paul Star Tribune: http://www.startribune.com

Bookmark It

3D Studio Max Surfaces and Shadows

admin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:34:00 +0000

Just a few images of some work we did in the lab while experimenting with 3D Studio Max. We are in the process of putting together a new promo ad for GemGfx and these are the creative stages. Just thought we’d share some with you.

We plan to put up a tutorial on how we got these effects perhaps in the near future.

Different color metals with reflection and shadows.

Closeup of the black metallic.

Closeup of the silver contrasted with the black metallic

Silver against the red. Love the soft shadows on the floor.

Closeup of the red metallic.

It's going to be smoother. A work in progress.

Three colors contrasted. Again the soft shadows.

Same shot without the floor reflection. And more shadow.

Before the color was applied. Just chrome with reflections and shadows.

It’s no secret we at GemGfx love 3d and we’re going to be putting out more 3d stuff in the coming months.

Regards,
GemGfx

Bookmark It

YouTube is down.

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:17:03 +0000

Well here’s something you don’t see everyday. A few people sent word to us here at GemGfx, that YouTube the mother of all video sharing websites was down. Upon investigation we found that the site that boasts of about millions of visits per day was in fact down. We were greeted with a “Down for Maintenance” message when we tried to access the URL.

Needless to say, countless advertising dollars are trickling away because YouTube is unlike any other website around. Allan Stern over at Center Networks, says that it’s due to the YouTube CDN (static file server) being down. We can’t confirm this to be the reason, but we can confirm that the site is actually down. Some have suggested a DOS attack such as suffered by the big guns Facebook and Twitter in recent months. We also can’t confirm this.

We’ll wait for a statement from YouTube. In the meantime, there are many advertisers that are probably twisting their hands right about now. Not to mention, the large community of folks that did not have a life before YouTube came along. Nevertheless, we can be sure that they are working on the problem, whatever it is, and they’ll be back with us shortly.

Regards,
GemGfx

UPDATE:

As promised, as of 6:19pm November 9th, YouTube is back up. Everyone can breathe now.

Regards,
GemGfx.

Bookmark It

Download the GemGfx ToolBar

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:45:47 +0000

Introducing the new GemGfx toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer. A powerful toolbar that will enhance your browsing experience. Keep updated with all that’s happening with GemGfx, as well as stay connected with your friends on Facebook and your followers on Twitter.

The Best of Our Site
Get our freshest content delivered directly to your browser,
no matter where you are on the Web.

Share stuff you find on the web.
Check out all of your favorite places on the Web, and share them with your friends on all your favorite social networks.

Powered Search
Search the Web, our site, and other useful engines.

Alerts to Your Desktop
Receive our most important news and announcements instantly.

RSS Reader, Facebook and Twitter.
Tap into our fave RSS feeds and stay connected with your friends on Facebook and Twitter

Plus many many more features. Get your toolbar today.

Bookmark It

GemGfx Promo Reel

admin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:04:46 +0000

Ever since we redesigned the GemGfx website, our regular visitors have been asking for the GemGfx Ad that was done a while back. So we decided to make it available once again.

Be on the lookout for a new GemGfx ad that is currently in production. Thanks for sticking with us as we continue to grow in this business.

Bookmark It