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

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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.

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Read more on the Trillium blog

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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.

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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!

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WEATHERSFIELD SUPPLEMENT – TOWN WEBMASTER NOVEMBER 6, 2008

by JULIA LLOYD WRIGHT

Weathersfield, November 17, 2008

Before the advent of the newspaper it was town gossip that passed information around the neighborhood.  Later small town newspapers kept residents informed of decisions made by elected officers, births, marriages and deaths and, maybe farm animals that ended up with some regularity in the town pound.

For several years during the 1970s and 1980s the Weathersfield Weekly, published by Armstrong and Edith Hunter with their band of unpaid correspondents faithfully reported on meetings, people and town events.

We’ve now moved on from the national, regional and town newspaper to reading about local activities on our home computers.

Looking for information on the Town of Weathersfield, VT?  Just go to your computer then type in: www.weathersfield.org. On that site you will find pertinent and useful facts about this small town of 3,000 inhabitants on the banks of the Connecticut River.

Do Weathersfielders and out-of-town visitors ever wonder who is behind the web site and who maintains its contents?  The town page is the handiwork of Melissa Snyder, the owner and operator of Barleywine Graphics, who is responsible for keeping the site up-to-date.

But, what is a ‘webmaster?’  My dictionary is too old to include such a word.

However, a webmaster is the web architect, according to Wikipedia an online encyclopedia, or developer, site author, or website administrator.  The word refers to the person responsible for designing, developing, marketing, or maintaining a website.

Melissa became the town’s webmaster in a round-about way; a personal web page led to a new entrepreneurial venture now shared with husband Steve.

Originally from Virginia, The Snyder’s came to the Greenbush area of Weathersfield from New York City in 1995.  Steve was an author and had recently written and published a book on beer (“The Brewmaster’s Bible”) for HarperCollins in New York.

While Steve was writing his next book, Melissa established Barleywine Herb Farm, where she raised and sold over 400 different varieties of herbs from her gardens and greenhouse. As part of the marketing and advertising for the farm, Melissa, who had been a graphic designer in her previous life in NYC, designed her first web site in 1997 to promote the farm.

Barleywine Herb Farm flourished from spring 1996 until 2001. The Eagle Times covered a visit to the farm one year and interviewed Melissa in her colonial gardens displaying new plants she was offering for sale.

In March of 2001, a devastating snowstorm collapsed the greenhouse. The Snyder’s, with help from neighbor David Bonta, resurrected the greenhouse for one more season, but ultimately decided to close the farm.

A new venture took over when the herb farm faded. Vendors and visitors to area craft fairs where Melissa sold her herbal gift products had seen her Barleywine Herb Farm web site.  “People liked it”, Melissa said, “and they asked me to design websites for them”.  Thus a new business, Barleywine Graphics, was born.

The official Weathersfield town web site was instituted and operated by a former Town Manager in the late 1990’s, while Melissa was working part time for two years as Assistant Town Clerk. When she left that position on “permanent maternity leave”, Melissa took on typesetting and layout responsibilities for the Annual Town Report as a freelance position.  In 2004, the School District’s Annual Report was combined with the Town’s Report when it was voted to combine the meetings.  Each year the size has increased, now up to 177 pages plus a 32-page appendix with added charts, maps and photographs.

When current Town Manager Larry Melen arrived ten years ago, he sought her help in maintaining the town’s site.  In 2003, Melissa completely redesigned the site, adding sections for the Historical Society, Community Groups, all the Town Officials, and more. That version served the town well for five years, until the most recent revamp was launched in Spring 2008. The newest version allows for town officials to edit their own pages, and upload minutes and other documents to the site, includes a lot of news, historical information and links. Residents unable to attend board and commission meetings can find agendas read a copy of the approved Minutes online. Recent Town Reports are available for download, as are many forms and applications. The monthly calendar includes all town meetings (selectboard, zoning, planning, conservation commission, etc.) and quite a few more that take place at Martin Hall and at other locations around town. There is also an extensive photo gallery that includes photos from the Historical Society.

With the increase in size of the Town web page has come an increase in traffic.  “It is very popular” Melissa said. “It ranks right at the top of page 1 on Google” even beating out other larger towns with the same name.

Melissa believes that the town site should not only serve the residents but also attract tourism.  “Although”, she added, “not that there are a lot of tourist destinations in Weathersfield but there are interesting historic sites, recreational spots, and nature areas “.

The community-based news site iWeathersfield.com was another of Melissa’s creative ideas.  After discovering iBrattleboro.com in 2005, Melissa was inspired by the vibrant community that supported it.  She followed the idea, inviting townspeople to get involved and contribute with their news, hoping it could eventually evolve into a modern version of “The Weathersfield Weekly”.  The site is independent of the official municipal site, and people are encouraged to log in and post their information and events, volunteer opportunities, as well as opinions and even classified ads, all for free. Frequent contributors include the Weathersfield Cub Scouts, WRAPP (the Weathersfield Recreation Program) Proctor Library, and Town Constable Lynn Esty, who posts animal information, but more groups and individuals are also strongly encouraged to participate with articles and events.

The third town website Melissa manages is the Weathersfield School District site (weathersfieldschool.org). She redesigned the previously existing site in 2007, and added the capability for all faculty and staff to edit their own pages, as well as submitting calendar events and photos in the large photo gallery.

School pages include team activities, PTA news, physical education information from teacher Laura Berry and the music and band program activities submitted by William von Gillern.  A favorite new addition this school year has been Frank Treu’s Daily Homework page.

Although all three sites are completely independent of each other, they are all linked to each other for easy accessibility.

Melissa and her author husband Steve now operate Barleywinegraphics.com as a team from their historic farmhouse.  Steve writes text and Melissa designs web sites and supplies graphics for a rapidly growing list of regional clients. They have also recently joined the team of Trillium Digital, with online marketing guru and fellow Weathersfield resident Reid Greenberg.

Weathersfield residents are invited to check out their town pages and visitors are encouraged to read about the town’s history and enjoy the many photographs on the website. “It’s been a labor of love” says Melissa, “this is such a wonderful little town, I really wanted to show it off to the world.”

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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!

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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!

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

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

Congratulations, Lisa!! Beautiful Work!!

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