TJFF Launches New Web Portal
(Northernstars.ca)

(January 20, 2010 - Toronto, Ontario) – Well in advance of its April 2010 opening, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival has launched what it hopes will become a portal to the Worldwide Jewish Experience On Film. This year's festival, the 18th annual edition, will run from April 17th to the 25th offering a selection of feature films, documentaries and shorts from around the world on themes of Jewish culture and identity. But the website is available now.

View the full story.

Come see us at the Association of Registered Graphic Designers HeadStart Conference 2010
February 26, 2010 - February 27, 2010

HeadStart Conference
Saturday, February 27
9:00am - 4:20pm
CNIB Centre
1929 Bayview Ave, Toronto

Heads Up, Advanced session, 3:20 - 4:20 pm
Firm Owner Panel
Join successful firm owners as they discuss the design and business issues facing owners of creative service firms. We'll discuss marketing techniques, pricing strategies, client collaboration, employee management and other best practices that can make businesses more successful, efficient and profitable. Panelists include Bob Hambly R.G.D., Creative Director at Hambly & Woolley; Michael Huggins R.G.D. of For Graphic Designers Only; James Wilson R.G.D., Principal at Overdrive Design, Diego Casco R.G.D, President and Creative Director, Casco Design Communications; Claire Dawson R.G.D. and Fidel Pena R.G.D., Principals and Creative Directors at Underline Studio.

For more information go to.
Association of Registered Graphic Designers Home page: http://www.rgdontario.com
Headstart Page: http://www.rgdontario.com/viewEvent.asp?ID=326#headfirst

Overdrive launches  new Toronto Jewish Film Festival site

TJFF introduces an All New Web Portal
By: HELEN HATZIS
Published: January 19th 2010
The Toronto Jewish Film Festival that presents the best feature films, documentaries and shorts from around the world, on themes of Jewish culture and identity is prepping to take its audience into cyberspace with a brand new, cutting-edge website for its 18th annual edition.

The 18th annual Toronto Jewish Film Festival is slated from April 17 - 25, 2010.  Kicking off their Chai year is a stunning new website designed by Overdrive Design and supported by a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

This brand new site will help festival goers navigate smoothly through the detailed calendar, events, highlights, trailers and a featured blog offering intimate interviews with filmmakers along with a photo gallery.

There is also a section dedicated to their educational initiative Film Matters plus a detailed history of the Festival, its founders, contributor and so forth. And for those who wish to contribute to the festival's continued growth, there is a forum specificially aimed at sponsors and donors as well.

In addition, during the jam packed 10 days of this year's 18th festival, there will be a variety of ways to set up your film viewing schedules allowing you to choose by film, date, and venue.  Full film information will be at your fingertips, and clips from a number of the films will be available for viewing. The popular Blog will include action-packed news and interviews from the filmmakers involved in the festival.

"We wanted to provide a more accessible reach for the New-Media-savvy public, the media, and our supporters," says Executive Festival Director Helen Zukerman of TJFF's  bold step into cyberspace. "As well, TJFF has amassed enough tradition and buzz to make the past, present and future initiatives on the website a must-click."

The ROM's Digital Classroom moves up a grade.

Overdrive Design has just been awarded the Interactive component for the Digital Gallery installation at the Royal Ontario Museum. The Digital Gallery is anticipated to be a major educational initiative for the ROM in 2009-2010, expanding the digital classroom experience for elementary students as well as the public.

Although the ROM has an existing Digital classroom that delivers lessons on Ancient Egypt and Canadian Heritage, the computer stations and the video lessons are stand alone components - they operate independently and are manually controlled.

The new Digital Gallery will consist of three components:  a large video panel that will deliver educational content, a central interactive teacher station and 16 interactive touch screen student kiosks. The three components will be networked and programmatically integrated, enabling them to communicate with each other in real-time. The large video monitor will display educational programs, prompting students to respond at specific points at their own kiosks. From the teacher's station, program leaders will be able to observe each student kiosk individually, allowing them to monitor the students' progress though a series of engaging tasks in real time. When the leader sees the students have all finished a specific task, they can prompt the video lesson to move to the next section. This allows the program to progress at a pace geared specifically to each participating group. Moreover, leaders will be able to determine when material is not being understood as well. This allows the leader to enhance the lesson - either with their own clarification, or by choosing a supplementary Video lesson to further explain concepts that need further clarification.

The first digital program to be launched in this enhanced format will be an Earth Science module, which is expected to be ready for student testing by January 2010. Says Overdrive President James Wilson, "we've learned kids really put the kiosks to the test - a project isn't fully finished until it has successfully withstood bus loads of fourth graders. In particular this project could have a real impact on the creative delivery of educational material in an entertaining format."

The module will be a complementary experience to enhance the grade 4 Ontario science curriculum. Working with the educational experts and curators at the ROM, Overdrive will take the exceptional assets and create both video lessons and interactive activities, as well as the interface that will allow digital communication between the different components. The program is intended to be modular, in that the lesson format, digital tasks and interface will be designed so that the format can be re-tooled to present other lessons. The first lessons to receive the new Digital Gallery approach will be the existing programs on Ancient Egypt and Canadian Heritage, however in the future, lessons could feature such popular topics as Dinosaurs. Says Overdrive Developer Joey Lapegna, "we expect one of the most popular interactive activities in the Earth Sciences lesson will be the Mining game. Students will be given the information to determine appropriate locations for mining specific materials, as well as instruction on basic mining procedures. Based on how well they are able to apply this knowledge they'll either strike it rich or end up "going bust". I imagine this could be appealing to visitors at large to the ROM, not just kids."

This installation is the most recent in a series of exciting projects implemented by Overdrive for the ROM. In addition to kiosks for the ROM's Iconic Objects, Overdrive also designed and implemented the interactive touch screen interfaces for The Mineral Gallery, The Mining Hall of Fame in the Tech Suite of Galleries, and interactive touch screens for The Schad Gallery of Biodiversity. Each of these touch screens allow visitors to the ROM to learn more about specific specimens in an exhibit, including the display of information and a variety of multimedia assets including photography, video and maps.

Previously, Overdrive was commissioned to work on multi-media kiosks for the James and Louise Temerty Galleries of the Age of Dinosaurs and the Donor Wall in the Currelly Gallery.  

For media information regarding the ROM, please contact the ROM Communications Department at:
Tel.: 416.586.5547 _E-mail: media@rom.on.ca

For more information about Overdrive Design, contact James Wilson
Tel.: 416.537-2803_ E-mail: james@overdrivedesign.com

Overdrive featured in Design Edge Magazine

Overdrive's work for the Royal Ontario Museum's Schad Gallery of Biodiversity was featured  online in the Canadian design publication's News section on July 14.  To see what they had to say, check out the following link:

http://www.designedgecanada.com/news/2009/20090714833.shtml

Overdrive designs and executes interactive stations for The Royal Ontario Museum's Robert Schad Gallery of Biodiversity

Overdrive Design is pleased to announce the launch of the interactive kiosk installations designed for The Schad Gallery of Biodiversity at the Royal Ontario Museum opened on May 16, 2009. The Gallery explores the diversity of life on earth and how these species and habitats are threatened by human activity. The 10,000 square-foot gallery presents more than a thousand specimens. The fifteen interactive stations help convey the powerful statement about life on earth and offer optimistic solutions and actions that individuals may take. The project involved creating an interface that could accommodate and seamlessly display 2500 specimens, including data, video and images.

About The Royal Ontario Museum
The Royal Ontario Museum is among the world's leading museums of natural history, and of world cultures. Indeed, in combining a universal museum of cultures with that of natural history, the ROM offers an unusual breadth of experience to visitors and scholars from around the world. We realize more acutely now that nature and humanity are intertwined, and the ROM offers many examples in its collections and programs of these fundamental relationships.

For media information regarding the ROM, please contact the ROM Communications Department at: Tel.: 416.586.5547 _E-mail: media@rom.on.ca

Overdrive is commissioned to design and implement new websites for Lingo Media and Speak2Me

After designing the original website and identity for Lingo Media in 1997, Overdrive is revisiting the mandate of the company's web presence to better facilitate the user's experience. This will involve creating two separate but related sites for both Lingo and the new venture Speak2Me.

About Lingo Media and Speak2Me
Lingo Media Corporation is a diversified online and print-based education product and services corporation. Lingo Media's Speak2Me Inc. is a new media company that focuses on online advertising in China via its Internet-based English language learning portal.

In China, where the Company has extensive industry and Government contacts built up over the past decade, Lingo Media continues to expand its legacy business via its subsidiary Lingo Learning Inc. ("Lingo Learning"), a print-based publisher of English language learning programs in China since 2001. Lingo Learning has an established presence in China's education market of 200 million students. To date, it has published 248 million units from its library of more than 340 program titles in China.

For more information, contact Michael Kraft at: mkraft@lingomedia.com.

Overdrive is commissioned to design and implement a public interactive installation for the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Oakville Waterfront Festival

This mobile 10 x 20' interactive installation will comprise three touch screens and a 57" display and will showcase Canadian blue chip talent via a multi-player quiz format using trivia derived from the Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees. In total, four computers will be networked to deliver this multi-player game show-style "edutainment" experience. The installation will be launched at the Oakville Waterfront Festival running June 26 - 28, 2009.

About The Canadian Music Hall of Fame
The Canadian Music Hall of Fame recognizes Canadian artists that have attained commercial success while having a positive impact on the Canadian music scene here at home and around the world.

For more information, visit www.carasonline.ca/HOF_home.php.

About The Oakville Waterfront Festival
The Oakville Waterfront Festival is a community based annual festival, established in 1991, that celebrates family activities, music and entertainment.

For more information contact Jill MacInnes at:
Tel.: 905-847-7975 _E-mail:jill@oakvillefestival.com

Overdrive is hired to design and execute a new website for The Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals (CAAMP)

Phase 1 of the CAAMP website is expected to be launched Mid June 2009 and will incorporate a large custom content management solution, based on the Melon CMS designed by Overdrive. This site will be information dense, and requires meticulous organization to integrate both front and back end data. This is critical to ensure an accessible user experience, in part achieved via the process of hiding and revealing information, so that the user receives appropriate information at the correct time and is not bombarded unnecessarily. Both French and English are required, and the site will be capable of toggling between the two.

About CAAMP
With over 12,000 members, representing over 1,400 companies across Canada, the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals (CAAMP) is the country's only national association that represents the mortgage industry. CAAMP members are Canada's top mortgage professionals and include mortgage lenders, brokers, insurers and other industry stakeholders. CAAMP members make up the largest network of mortgage professionals in the country.

For more information, contact Samir Asusa at: sasusa@caamp.org,
or Alison Cousland at: sasusa@caamp.org

Overdrive launches new website for Cardinal Meats

The new Cardinal website is fully interactive and searchable and features an extensive content management system based on Overdrives' Melon CMS and features custom built management tools to accommodate Cardinal's product line.

About Cardinal Meats
Cardinal Meats Cardinal Meat Specialists Ltd. is a Canadian, family owned company operating since 1966, with a family commitment to the meat business for over 75 years.

For more information, visit www.cardinalmeats.com.

Overdrive creates the GUI for Cobalt Adventure - an interactive story telling of Canada's Silver Capital

Cobalt Adventure, a web initiative spearheaded by Drew Gauley of Good Gauley Productions in association with the Cobalt Historical Society chronicles the boom and bust history of the silver capital of Canada - Cobalt, Ontario. The sophisticated on-line decision based story telling will be delivered via the web, and is expected to launch in Fall 2009. Users will select a specific character's point of view and see a unique Cobalt story via the "choose your own adventure" format. This interactive experience will require the seamless delivery of high quality videos, hundreds of which will be available as potential story line options. This project is funded by CHIN.

About The Cobalt Adventure
The Cobalt Mining District National Historic Site of Canada possesses a large number of vestiges and buildings directly relating to the evolution of the hard rock mining process of early 20th century in Canada.

For more information, visit www.historiccobalt.com.

About CHIN
CHIN ( The Canadian Heritage Information Network)The Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) is a Canadian government-supported organization that provides a networked interface to Canada's heritage, largely through the World Wide Web.

For more information, visit www.chin.gc.ca.

The Royal Ontario Museum launches the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame Gallery in the Tech Suite of Galleries

Overdrive designed and implemented the interactive touch screen and projection interfaces for the Vale Inco Limited Gallery of Minerals and the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame Gallery in the Teck Suite of Galleries in December 2008. In all, this installation comprises twenty-four touch screen interfaces delivering visual and textual information on over 2300 mineral specimens, 140 Mining Hall of Fame inductees and how minerals are used in everyday life.

About The Royal Ontario Museum
The Royal Ontario Museum is among the world's leading museums of natural history, and of world cultures. Indeed, in combining a universal museum of cultures with that of natural history, the ROM offers an unusual breadth of experience to visitors and scholars from around the world. We realize more acutely now that nature and humanity are intertwined, and the ROM offers many examples in its collections and programs of these fundamental relationships.

For media information regarding the ROM, please contact the ROM Communications Department at: Tel.: 416.586.5547 _E-mail: media@rom.on.ca

Overdrive hired for a second consecutive year to design an integrated identity program for the Human Resources Professionals Association's (HRPA) Conference and Trade show

The 2010 HRPA Conference and Trade Show requires a full suite of promotional and informational components, both in print and on-line. Beginning with a conference logo, this project integrates the execution of the identity through a variety of materials, from ads to an extensive printed conference program, to a one page "at a glance" guide. Consistent usage of the conference identity, which is used by a myriad of suppliers and conference participants is maintained with a comprehensive Identity Style Guide.

About HRPA
The Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA) is Canada's HR thought leader with over 18,000 members in 28 chapters in Ontario and other locations across Canada and around the world. It annually hosts the world's second largest HR conference. In Ontario, HRPA grants the Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) designation, the national standard for excellence in human resources management.

For more information, visit http://www.hrpa.ca.

Overdrive designs new identity and touch screen GUI for Prolink's Golf Cart GPS system

This project involved designing a full suite of components, including an identity, collateral materials and a graphic user interface for the golf cart GPS system.

About ProLink Solutions
This Phoenix, Arizona company provides an industry-leading GPS system that boasts a high-resolution, color display unit neatly affixed to each golf cart. The easy-to-read screen displays pinpoint-accurate distances to the hole, as well as vibrant and easy-to-understand graphics of fairways, greens, hazards and other on-course geographical features. Better navigating the course and taking guesswork out of the game aids golfers' shot selections and, in turn, speeds pace of play.

For more information, visit http://www.goprolink.com.

Overdrive is retained to produce integrated identity program for VisEn Medical ( Boston )

Overdrive has been commissioned to design and execute a new visual identity for Visen Medical out of Boston, Massachusetts. This fully integrated identity includes, logo and standards, collateral and sales tools, stationery, brochures, direct mail (both electronic and print), posters, tradeshow installations and website advertising.

About Visen Medical
Visen Medical is pioneering a new era of in vivo imaging, enabling scientists not only to detect and monitor biology, but also to measure and accurately quantify biological mechanisms and therapeutic responses deep within the body in real time, yet non-invasively. VisEn provides technology that allows researchers to investigate, understand and quantify underlying biological mechanisms and therapeutic responses in areas such as inflammatory, cardiovascular, skeletal and pulmonary disease as well as oncology.

For more information, visit http://www.visenmedical.com.

Overdrive is hired to design and implement new identity and website for Cannasat Pharmaceuticals

Overdrive designed and launched an integrated identity program and website for Cannasat Pharma ( Toronto ).

This project features the implementation of Overdrive's Melon CMS, a cost-effective solution for managing content as no customization was required for the client to maintain ongoing control of their on-line assets.

About Cannasat Pharmaceuticals
Founded in 2004, Cannasat is a clinical stage pharmaceutical company developing products to treat neurological disorders such as neuropathic pain and schizophrenia. By focusing on clinically proven molecules versus new chemical entities, Cannasat is able to accelerate the speed to market of new drugs, candidates and reduce overall development cost and risk.

For more information, visit http://www.cannasat.com.

Canada Post issues McClelland & Stewart Centenary Stamp

Overdrive is excited to announce that McClelland & Stewart today unveiled their commemorative stamp at an event held at the University of Toronto, hosted by Canadian literary icon Farley Mowat. Overdrive was honoured to have been chosen to design this important issue.

“There’s a lot of Canadian literary history in McClelland & Stewart,” explains James Roberts, “And I wanted to create a stamp design that somehow reflected that sense of literary greatness. However, a postage stamp is also seen everywhere, which means there’s no room whatsoever for mistakes.”

Contrasting the multi coloured implementation of many postage stamps, the limited use of colour on this stamp perfectly complements the simplicity of the design. The choice of colour was important in conveying the history behind the subject matter. Metallic finishing on the chariot further enhances the stamp’s classical look and feel. Canada Post felt that this limited colour was key to the stamps success and stood behind it 100%.

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