Help for Tom?

I now have a domain!

I started the site with a simple, (but overly complicated) domain name of filmmakergear.com - nothing quite like a domain consisting of not one, not two but three individual terms (film, maker and gear). Ah, I'm flashing back to the dot-com daze...such wonderful stock options...

Well, after the G1 site went up for beta testing, I immediately hated it. It was black, had a boring logo and just looked bad. Probably when sitting in my orange-themed living room did I come up with the idea for the new Strikeset design. (It didn't hurt that I just happened to be taking a class called "Business Storytelling and Brand Development". So I started with the logo and kind of went from there.

When it came to a name, I was having less success. Obeying the rules of brand development, I wanted a name that was a proper noun, a word evocative of filmmaking, film sets and film makers, and something that demanded action - oh, and the domain had to be available - it seems that's always the stumbling block nowadays. Here were the open names:

Followshot Clothing

Zip Pan Clothing

Strikeset Clothing

Slowzoom Clothing

Matteshot Clothing

I did a little market research (I interviewed ten of my film school and pro cinema buddies) and Strikeset was the clear winner, followed closely by...filmmakergear. Slowzoom was another popular choice, but I don't like the word "slow" in there (though I like the dichotomy of the "slow" and the speed of the word "zoom"). Zip Pan became "Zippin'" when said too fast and would be hard for someone who heard the name (as opposed to reading it) to find online. Similar problems on "Matteshot", which is a cool film term, but sounds like "Matt's Hot!". Ditto for "Followshot" (Follows Hot!). Strikeset, on the other hand sounds fast - "Strikes it!". So with my two choices in hand, I did the next best thing to picking one, I kept the filmmakegear domain and added strikeset. One forwarding to another, and so the world turns.

The logo was a lot of fun to design too. Of course, the film can reels to the left are an obvious symbol for the cinema, and since I was going with a classic, aged look for this line, the old can-style 35mm reels were a better choice than say, a video camera. The font was downloded (I didn't build it), with a slight drop shadow and a twisted slash which is evocative of a film strip shooting off the reel. I gave the logotype a fading perspective and added the subtitle to the lower right to create the pleasing "panoramic rectangle" so favored by Graphic Designers these days.

I also added Google Analytics to the front page (since so much of this page is built with a script, I'm not sure if Google will index, but CPShop has a nice little tracking feature I can use to trend). I also threw on a down and dirty search function, but I am not pleased with it. I'll play with the Google search a bit and see if I can get that to work for me.

I also drafted a final "To-Do" list of little items I need to add or correct. Other than the sidebar and footer links, probably the hardest are to get the desctiptions and keywords working in CafePress and finish the thumbnail tables (and if anyone knows a way to dynamically generate those, shoot me an email, that would save me a few hours).

I have started to get hits on the filmmakergear site though we're still not live. I have dedicated all of Saturday to get this mofo off the ground and am hoping to get the first ads placed and the first press releases out by Monday. I'll tell you how that goes!