One of our contacts for the upcoming Banjo-B-Que event, Christy, wants an interactive map for her iPad — something iPad-screen-friendly, touchable, easy. She wants to avoid leafing through stapled sheets of paper. She wants an in-hand quick-reference to the locations of each BBQ pit to be at the Banjo-B-Que, something online, something equally accessible to all attendees. And she wants our help.

Oz and Nathan can help.

Nathan glides through the map’s design, laying out a little code to aid Oz. Oz key-clacks his own custom code into existence, all the while rocking out to fantastic 90s R&B. Nathan and Oz marry the design and the code, and what results 9 months later is an iPad-friendly map-baby to which Christy, as well as the BBQers themselves, will have access for streamlining the Banjo-B-Que BBQ pit set-up this year. Go, map-baby! Go! It’s not a real baby. It’s just a map. It also didn’t take 9 months. But we are still proud like parents.

If you’d like to play around with the map, you may view it at

www.banjobque.com/map

As a side-note, this year’s Banjo-B-Que should be a boot-stompin’, rabble-rumbling hootenanny.

We stepped into the future for the 2011 ESi WebEOC User and Training Conference this past March.  If you’ve tried to catch us and missed us – well – that’s why.  We were in the future.

Kruhu is back and we do have stories to tell and things to share.  It all started with the amazing and forward thinking company, ESi.  If you haven’t heard of them, they are the global leader in crisis information management technology.  The staff is an amazing, bright, cutting edge and simply wonderful group of people to work with.

They approached us about branding the 2011 WebEOC User & Training Conference in Augusta and we jumped on it like a space monkey with roller skates.  The mission consisted of these elements; theme development, branding and naming of rooms, designing the 70 page user booklet, badges, lanyards, classroom banners, onsite signage and displays that consisted of different types of directional, welcome and digital signage as well as video work, an animated logo and a miniature conference website.

After developing the theme name we created this brand image for the conference… The theme was related to the concept of “six degrees of separation” which is the considerable relationship from one WebEOC user to another.

From there, we got to work on the print collateral. Kruhu designed a 70-page conference booklet that would serve two goals; the first to provide conference information and the second, to serve as a classroom pass that could change based on each attendee’s schedule.  We also created custom artwork for conference events that took place throughout the week.  Take a look at some of the work.

Up next, signage to brand the event.  We started with a sheet of aluminum and a big Styrofoam six and got to work interweaving the two – which took three people and some serious touch up work on the paint. We put a finish on the aluminum and hung it in the Marriott’s main entrance.   The final sign measured about 7ft wide by 4ft tall.

We also created mobile signage for the event. Prepositional mannequins were the Spring 2011 highlight of our inter-office humor. We now have one stationed in our “all-serious” conference room with a Magnum P.I. mustache, a super afro and a twirling helicopter hat. There was some serious time spent making these guys into galactic ESi conference guides. Many hours went into building the props, creating custom graphics and outfitting the guys with glow wire from our seamstress Cynthia.

There’s still more! We built a satellite to provide directions.  This part of the project was intended to be a massive directional sign pointing attendees in the correct direction to certain classes or rooms. We met with the hotel staff twice to figure out the best way to approach the project for hanging such a device.  We planned to build a satellite out of very thin steel and hang it, but as soon as we had the wing fabricated we knew that safety and weight would actually be an issue. We came up with a sketch and began the work.  It took a great deal of time to convert these sketches into a final product made of materials that were stable, yet light enough to hang without the chance of falling.  The 100lb satellite was built so that it would hang from the top and a professional lifter hung it with a roughly 6000 pound regulation cord.

After the satellite went up late on Sunday evening we grabbed a photo or two. Monday morning, a hotel staff member said that satellite wasn’t going to work in the air “because of safety reasons.”  We were told it could not be roped off on the ground level either “because of attendee traffic issues.”  Even though we had discussions with the hotel prior to building the satellite that was the end of it.  The conference was starting Monday afternoon and we had to think smart and fast.  How could we recover some use of the satellite?  Our best option was to break it down and use it for a table centerpiece.  We painted some hose, ran power through it, put some dry ice in it, created some graphics and had it transformed in a day.

The last piece of the conference branding we built was a mini-event website, geared to give attendees the most up-to-date info about the event on the fly.  We also filmed comments from attendees on site and edited it overnight for use during the ESi User & Training Conference Awards Show. Thanks Sandy for the motorized fading/twinkling lights, no one anywhere seemed to have these in February.

Overall there were more pieces we created and signage we designed but for the most part, we focused on these pieces. We want to thank all of the Kruhu staff (now including Maggie) for putting in INSANE hours. We want to thank our machine shop, Shane Hulsebus, Sandy and of course Cynthia for artistically applying the glow wire to our props.

Thanks to a referral, we were able to play role in the Graham family episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition. We felt as privileged as most other companies that were able to play a role in the project.

In all that Kruhu does, note that it isn’t redistribution of a given product. We dream things up, we invent and we create. Most of the time, our helpful projects sail blissfully under the radar and we generally like it that way.

When it comes to our work, our time is our life and one simply limits the other. The projects that we pour out, with it, goes a piece of us – never to return, as a chip off the block of what we could produce with our lives. Some causes are more worthy than others, but all take the toll.

We made some great new friends with the crew and since December we’ve worked on a total of 3 different shows for Extreme Makeover Home Edition.

We produced several pieces for the Graham family and we’d like to share some images and what they were.

First being in the Prank room. We built the sign out of foam, painted lexan, pinpoint LEDs and the crew attached a motor to the “O” as a moving target for him to shoot with a nerf gun. Also, Cynthia made the bean bag chair on the floor that was a massive Whoopee cushion (and actually had a Whoopee cushion inside of it as well)

Second room Alias room – We were involved in 3 pieces of this room, the top being a panel panel piece designed to inspire aliases for Tiffany in future career as a CIA agent or law officer. We photoshopped her into different scenarios with applicable color schemes.

The table chandelier – thanks to some friends Mike & Nate, they got the motor to make this happen, bur the chandelier drops down to make top secret writing desk. We designed it with all kinds of smooth field agent materials – and the desk came with a dry erase marker that she can write directly on the folder surface and erase it with ease.

Interactive touchscreens in the armoire – this is one where they asked us if we could it do it – then followed up very quickly with a “does that sound crazy” yes it was crazy. Speaking of crazy the units didn’t have flash installed and some killer crew members work through the night to get flash running on the devices some that we could simulate the motion graphics. UNFORTUNATELY – we don’t have touchscreens to give you, but here is one of the actual files we streamed remotely during the show. (its a lot cooler when you use your your finger)

Golf Sign – Welcome to the club! As a last moment effort we designed a sign for the mini golf course in the backyard.