Barleywine Graphics

Stephen Snyder, Trillium partner in charge of Content Management and Brand Services has completed his second book for publisher Gibbs Smith titled The New Solar Home, to be published in September. The New Solar Home is Snyder’s second co-authored with Dave Bonta, founder and president of USA Solar Stores LLC.

Signed copies can be obtained directly from Snyder beginning in mid-September.

Bookmark Me!

Well, another beautiful Vermont summer is winding down and we are rolling out a few new sites along with a few updated ones.

In April we were honored to have as Trillium’s first official client Clear Mountain Solar Store in Claremont, NH. Clear Mountain Solar hired Trillium Digital to promote its renewable energy and sustainable living products on the Web. We put together a very complex WordPress site, which includes video feeds, an large image gallery, blogs, and many pages of information.We had a tight deadline to meet, and had to launch the site in less than one month to coincide with a large home show the store was participating in.   Visit the site.

Husband and wife artist team David Rubel and Diane Cothern contacted us last spring asking for a multi-purpose site to promote their portrait, mural and decorative screen painting business. It was a challenge to find a way to incorporate all three diverse arms of their business into one cohesive site, but we think it turned out just great! This is a WordPress site with a large dynamic image gallery. David and Diane are having a blast being able to edit their pages themselves, as well as add new images, captions, and descriptions to the gallery.

Just in time for back-to-school, we also revamped the Weathersfield School site, upgrading the software and updating the template to make the site even easier for the school employees to maintain. This site is now 100% maintained by school staff!

Trillium Digital Internet Design & Strategy had a great month of May. We were fortunate to land three great new clients in one month. The Mountain Goat, Cook in the Kitchen and Acrylic Designs Incorporated all signed us to redesign their existing websites and ramp up their SEO/SEM efforts. All three share Trillium’s commitment to locally owned and operated business that support sustainability and healthy lifestyles.

We are nearing launch of the new  Acrylic Designs Incorporated (ADI),  a leading Point-of-Purchase (P-O-P) store display manufacturer located in Springfield, Vermont with an innovative recycling program for its American-made products that keeps plastics out of the waste stream. Trillium’s website redesign will help ADI’s sales force share it’s growth in new markets and keep customers abreast of the news and trends in P-O-P and of in-store marketing. Launch is planned for early September.

Coming in October:

Barleywine will launch the newest revision of Vermont Watercolor Society, one of the oldest clients in our portfolio. This Joomla site will incorporate the existing member database with its extensive member gallery pages with a document download area, member forum, dynamic event calendar, and many new features that will enable the Society’s Board of Directors to keep the site maintained themselves.

The Mountain Goat is a premier hiking camping and adventure equipment store located in Manchester, Vermont just minutes from the Appalachian Trail. They have been a favorite of hikers for years because of their top of the line boots and gear. In addition to giving their website an updated look and feel, Trillium will help The Mountain Goat raise visibility of their Custom Footbeds and Orthotics.

Cook in the Kitchen is a Vermont-based company offering an amazing assortment of all-natural gourmet pancake, scone, soup mixes, and gift baskets to its thousands of devoted fans. Trillium will help Cook in the Kitchen build an effective website that raises its wholesale and retail profile and supports a successful e-business.

Bookmark Me!

Barleywine Graphics owner and Trillium Digital partner Melissa Snyder presented a workshop on “Building Effective Websites” at the Northeast Resource Recovery Association’s 28th Annual Conference & Expo in Manchester, NH, June 8th. Trillium was invited to speak because of their highly regarded website done for the Southern Windsor/Windham Counties Solid Waste Management District.

Read more on the Trillium blog

Bookmark Me!

We at Barleywine Graphics are very excited to announce a new partnership between Melissa and Steve Snyder and Reid Greenberg to form Trillium Digital Internet Design & Strategy, a new, Vermont-based company offering website design, ecommerce implementation, blogging, online marketing, and public relations services.

On February 22, 2009, a press release proudly announced the launch of their new website (www.trilliumdigital.com) and that they are now accepting new clients.

“Trillium Digital is dedicated to helping small to medium-sized companies achieve their online and ecommerce goals by being a fully involved, long-term partner,” explains Reid Greenberg, Trillium’s Head of Client Marketing and Ecommerce expert.

After 12 years designing websites solo for her company Barleywine Graphics, Chief Designer Melissa Snyder is “thrilled”, she says, “to have new partners who can take my work to a higher level for my clients”.

Barleywine clients have no need to worry, though. Barleywine Graphics will remain an active web design company and will continue to provide the same high level of customer service as before.

Bookmark Me!

The winter of 2008-2009 was certainly a busy one! In addition to all our regular maintenance sites, we developed several sites for non-profits and municipal organizations, including a redesign of the popular Southern Windsor/Windham Counties Solid Waste Management District. This site was huge, and really needed to be re-organized from the ground up. We customized a clean, green Joomla template, created a huge number of custom graphics, and spent hours sorting through the complex information that was already present on the site, and launched in February. The new site has gotten some attention — in April we were invited to speak at a workshop on “Building Effective Websites” at the Northeast Resource Recovery Association’s 28th Annual Conference & Expo in Manchester, NH, June 8th, 2009, using this website as an example of effective site design.

In February we also celebrated our 10th year of publishing the Town of Weathersfield’s, 250-page Annual Town Report, the official record of all the pertinent information regarding the Town’s government, including reports of all local agencies, elected officials, and official boards and commissions, Town budgets for the both the past and upcoming fiscal year, auditor’s reports, Town Meeting warnings and minutes, list of all appointed and elected officials, voting results of all elections during the past fiscal year, vital records, etc.  All this takes place in a short five-week span in January and February of each year, after which the Report is mailed to every household in Town in time for Annual Town Meeting. We are proud to be part of this important aspect of our Town’s government.

A smaller, yet no less important site we put together this winter was the All-One-Family Fund site, which is a foundation that helps facilitate both international and US-based adoptions. The foundation is the brainchild of a local philanthropist, who began the foundation with money from the sale of her home in Vermont. She is also writing a memoir of her own adoption story, and will use the proceeds from the sale of her book to help finance the foundation. This is a very worthwhile project, and one that is dear to our hearts as we have many friends and  loved ones whose lives have been touched by adoption. Although finished, the site is now on hold, it is planned to go live once Titia’s book is published later this year.

Stay tuned for more big news coming soon!

Bookmark Me!

Barleywine Graphics owner Melissa Snyder was featured in the Claremont, NH Eagle Times in November, in a large spread detailing her work as Webmaster for the Town of Weathersfield, as well as her other volunteer work in the community.  Check out the full article!

Continue Reading »

Bookmark Me!

Well it has been another busy summer for us here at Barleywine Graphics! We launched several new sites, including the long-awaited complete redesign of the The First Universalist Society of Hartland Four Corners site.

First Universalist Society

This was one of my very first clients, and the original site had not been touched, design-wise, since about 2000! I have to say that it stood the test of time pretty well, but it was definitely time for a big change! We converted the entire site to Joomla!, which will enable the people at the Church to help with the updates. We implemented an events calendar and many other improvements, and I think they’re going to be very happy with the results.

Whippletree Yarn Shop

Another big project this summer was a brand new e-commerce site for a yarn shop in Woodstock, Vermont. Built with Zen Cart, this site will ultimately have hundreds of items, but for now,  Whippletree Yarns is easing slowly into the waters of e-commerce, and will actually begin taking orders later in the fall. In the meantime, be sure to check out their great selection of yarns, patterns, and accessories.

Wayside Youth

Also this summer was a new venture for me, as the Joomla consultant working with another design house down in Massachusetts. Milk Row Studios of Worcester, MA,  approached me last spring to help with the total redesign of the Wayside Youth site, migrating this enormous site over to Joomla! After months of meetings and the usual design changes, we are expecting to launch the new face for this very worthy cause in late September. Earlier in the summer I also collaborated with Milk Row on another project, The Encompass Education website.

Finally, closest to our hearts here in Weathersfield, is the simplest site I’ve had to to put together in ages; the

New Green Home Solutions

launch for the new book, New Green Home Solutions, by David Bonta and Stephen Snyder. It’s just a little Wordpress site with e-commerce enabled, but David is another client who goes way back with us – not only have we been friends for many years, I also have been working with his website since he opened his Solar Store empire back in 2001. And his co-author is no less than my husband Steve Snyder, a PR and marketing guru who I’ve been lucky enough to work with for the past few years, ever since he left Dartmouth to venture out on his own.

New Green Home Solutions

Steve is an important part of our team here at Barleywine Graphics, as main copywriter and head of all our PR and marketing campaigns for our clients.

We are all so proud to be a part of this green movement, and this book is going to be an important part of teaching people how easy it is to use renewable energy in their own lives, whether they want to start small, by changing their light bulbs, or go full steam ahead and install solar panels and wind turbines. It’s an absolutely gorgeous book, and I’m thrilled to be able to help them promote it. Congratulations, guys!!

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to New Green Home Solutions for your very own autographed copy!

Bookmark Me!

Tags: Joomla consultant, New Green Home Solutions, The First Universalist Society of Hartland Four Corners, Whippletree Yarns

Well, the month of June has certainly been busy around here – we’ve launched several sites this week, including a complete redo of the Aubergine ecommerce site. When new owners took over the management of the famous kitchen store in Woodstock, Vermont, they wanted a complete overhaul, and that’s what they got! New logo, hundreds of new products, and a brand new shopping cart to use for it. Now the owners can add new products anytime they want, and have complete control over the managment of their orders.

That same week, the much less complicated Vermont Stone Cross and then Northeast Timber Exchange sites were ready to go! Whew!

Next on the list – a complete overhaul of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Hartland (the very first site I was ever hired for!), and Whippletree Yarn Shop in Woodstock. Stay tuned!

Bookmark Me!

Our favorite floorcloth artist, Lisa Curry Mair, has once again found national acclaim, this time scoring the cover of the lovely magazine, Early American Life!

Here’s a link to her blog post about the story:

http://canvasworksfloorcloths.com/wordpress/?p=185

Congratulations, Lisa!! Beautiful Work!!

Bookmark Me!

The big project over the late winter was a complete overhaul of the Town of Weathersfield municipal website. We gave it a fresh new look, and transferred hundreds of pages as well as a significant document library over to Joomla! for ease of content management. Now the clerks of individual boards can easily add their own minutes to the site, and, and various town officers can edit their own content, making sure the site is as current and up-to-date as possible.

Bookmark Me!