Compass Rose Media

The Company

History

1992

It All Begins
We set up shop in the Compass Rose Building, located in downtown Santa Cruz, California. The oldest structure on Pacific Avenue, this historic building provided a unique environment for our creative endeavors, even supplying us with a name for our new company.

1994

Everything Under One Roof
Compass Rose Media hit a critical milestone in 1994 when we made the decision to build a facility that would allow all the creative aspects of a project to take place in one location. Before then, we had used the services of outside editorial and graphic studios. This not only changed the direction of the company by giving us more control and flexibility, it provided immediate economic benefits to our clients.

1996

New Studios
It didn't take long for us to outgrow the Compass Rose Building. We took up digs down the block on the second and third floors of 105 Locust Street. This gave us the room to bring in more talent and expand the facility. It also enabled us to build a dedicated graphics production center, two editorial rooms and a dedicated machine room. All of a sudden, a lot more could happen under the one roof.

1998

Totally Digital
Early on, we made a commitment to closely track new technology. When a digital workflow became affordable, we were ready for it. A whole new world of digital collaboration became a reality. As our studio became totally digital, our ability to collaborate and begin seamlessly integrating video with graphics and animation for both video and interactive projects.

2002

CRM Goes HD
This was the year that we began shooting in High Definition and upgraded both of our edit suites to full HD capability. This was also the year that all of our graphic and animation systems became fully HD capable. It was definitely one of those turning points in our evolution in terms of expanding what we could do for our clients.

2003

The Fiber Optic Network
Working with HD video and graphics files requires a fast storage area network (SAN). In 2003 we installed a multi-terabyte fiber channel SAN. This required us to also upgrade our internal systems with a fiber optic network. Immediately all of our developers, artists, programmers and editors were able to share the same storage, greatly enhancing the collaborative process.

2005

Portland, Oregon
As we started to do more integrated media projects, including flash, interactive and web, we started looking for a place to extend our reach. Portland quickly became our first choice for expanding the company. There were many reasons, but the ones that seemed most important were the accessibility to production and design talent and the industry demographics.

2006

The 8 Ball Lounge
Although it’s probably not one of the most significant dates in the timeline, it’s probably one of the most fun. We opened the 8 Ball Lounge in our Santa Cruz studio and it quickly became a favorite place to kick back for both clients and CRM team members. The lounge features a billiards table, ping pong, a 50 inch HD monitor with surround sound and a fridge stocked with some of our favorites. While we strive to do the best work we can, having fun is pretty important too.

2008

Portland Studio Expands
Nobody predicted that we'd outgrow our Portland studio so fast, but in January we moved to a new space that allowed us to add the talent we needed to tackle the amount of work we were taking on. The main focus of the Portland studio is in integrated, interactive and Web media. We have enough space now that we can grow along with our expanding client base.