What they wanted

Over the past 30 years, the National Black Programming Consortium had amassed a vast and eclectic collection of black media ranging from video to full-length documentaries and short films. However, it was all archived and physically stored in their offices and unavailable to the public. With the creation of Black Public Media, they wanted to digitize their library and share it, and also make it possible for people to purchase and download DRM-free versions of videos and films for their own use.

What they got

Launched in January 2008, blackpublicmedia.org now serves as an online hub for independent African and African-American filmmakers and viewers. Visitors to the site can surf channels such as Youth Media and BlackArt Roots, and subscribe to podcasts and blogs. The site's media is also available for purchase, in addition to a wide variety of "Free Stuff" and a "Dollar Store" of downloads for a dollar.

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What We Did

On the design side:

• Created a unique look for Black Public Media that still fit under the NBPC umbrella
• Designed the information architecture around the shopping cart and the presentation of the media

On the tech side:

• Developed the shopping cart and content management system on our own open-source framework
• Integrated our shopping cart into PayPal to utilize their secure payment processing
• Crafted the user interface with Ext JavaScript library and tasteful Ajax behaviors
• Integrated streaming Flash video onto the site from a third-party hosting and encoding service