MailDart(tm) is our easy-to-use newsletter system that lets you create effective and efficient e-mail campaigns. It’s our latest thing, and we think you’ll love it!

Today, we sent out a message to everyone on our email list (yes, we use MailDart ourselves) introducing the new service. A copy of that message is available right here. Here are the highlights:

Top 5 Reasons MailDart Rocks:

1. It gets results! (We know because we use it!)
2. It’s a pay-as-you-go system. There are no monthly fees.
3. No stock templates necessary. We create an email template that looks like YOU.
4. MailDart is fantastically easy to use.
5. Advanced reporting features give you the information you need to fine-tune your campaigns based on viewer feedback.

“MailDart is a great product. The reports allow me to make smart decisions about what I send my customers and the interface is easy to learn and use.” - Derek Cabrera, ThinkWorks

So head on over here for more information, or over here to contact us!

We take a lot of pride in the work that we do for clients. We spend a lot of time on beautiful design execution and standards based code especially for them. When we send our clients on their way of course we want to see them succeed!

We also feel a special connection to each of them. I certainly enjoyed seeing Garden Gate Delivery’s van, designed by Molly, parked the other day at the Ithaca Festival.

Today I got excited to see Ithaca Carshare on the front page of the Ithaca Journal today! Ithaca Carshare, after many years of hard work (largely from Jennifer Dotson), started operating yesterday. Participating in Ithaca Carshare’s convenient money-saving and carbon footprint-lessening transportation solution makes a lot of sense for so many people in Ithaca, especially those that live downtown but only need a car some of the time.

At AWP, we enjoyed developing materials for Ithaca Carshare, a company whose mission we believe in and is doing a great job in the Ithaca community. I am personally invested in the organization as well, as I first got involved with Ithaca Carshare when I was living with Dan Roth, one of the original organizers of the international car-sharing summit that took place at Ithaca College (January 2006). I later helped developed the first version of IthacaCarshare.org.

I am so happy to see this project come full circle and for all of the people who have worked so hard on making Ithaca Carshare succeed to see their dreams realized! Way to go!

If you haven’t heard by now you’ve definitely seen it by now: we’ve made some changes ’round here. Ordinarily that would mean adding a new feature to our website or a new member to the team but in this case we’ve done all that and so so so much more

Back To Basics

So almost one year ago (after all new staff settled - myself included) we got busy with our marketing materials, replaced our 4 year-old website and pushed the old brand as far as possible - seen here at right. Chip and Bryan had been working (very successfully might I add) with the frog/red combo for years, and our new flash-heavy website (last year, mind you) was a necessary and huge improvement over it’s predecessor. It felt fresh, got a great response from clients/friends/family/competition and propelled us through the rest of 2007.

A few months ago we found ourselves in a curious position. With a permanent staff of 6 and new content management system we realized a few things:

1) We had evolved/outgrown from our existing brand and wanted something new to represent our current culture and future path.

2) We loved WebTree so much that we wanted it to power our own site

3) We deserved (and felt it necessary) to run ourselves through our own branding/website design process as we would with a client.

The big hurdle in beginning this process, or at least coming to the above realizations, was that we were very much aware of how little time we had to devote to ourselves. We take pride in how much time and effort we invest our client’s work, but that often leaves us with only a few minutes here or an hour there to design or conceptualize internal projects. So our first step was to reserve time to make this all happen, because it needed to happen… (more…)

Today is the big day!  Obviously, all of you are aware that Firefox 3.0 was released at 1:00 pm, EST today, and that Mozilla was eyeing the Guiness Book of World Records record for most downloads in a single day, right?

Sure!

Well, the point is, if you haven’t yet: get Firefox.  As a Mac user, I am blown away by the improvements in speed and memory management in 3.0.  I honestly did not enjoy the Firefox 2.0 Mac experience, and used Safari as much as I could.  Windows users on the other hand, should already be using Firefox (boo, Internet Explorer), and 3.0 should be an upgrade.

The Firefox download site was down earlier today (did they not expect the traffic?!?) but we managed to get access by the end of the day.  I couldn’t wait that long and used BitTorrent to download what turned out to be an Italian version of 3.0 (I’ve sense switched back to English).

I’ve already stated my initial reactions.  The new look is great, too, it really opens up some more screen real-estate, which is something we always wrangle with as designers.

Compatibility-wise, there are updates availble for the Google Toolbar, Web Developer Toolbar, and the YSlow Firebug extension.  Firebug itself has a beta that works with 3.0, but the Firebug site has been down for the past few days.  You can find a mirror that has the code and a list of Firebug mirrors here.

Other than that, I’ve been enjoying the new experience.  I’m sure other AWP-ers will chime in over the next few days.

Did I mention boo Internet Explorer?  (explanation of previous link).

It’s finally happened! Ancient Wisdom Productions is now officially AWP (short for Ancient Wisdom Productions). It’s just a little easier to say, easier to write, and takes up less space in your Browser Location bar.

So Yeah! We’re AWP, website: http://www.awpny.com

You may also notice our fantastic new logo by Tyler (one of our star designers). I’ll let him go into the details about it later, but suffice to say: it rocks. We turned a lot of heads the other day at the Tompkins County Showcase.

We hope you enjoy the brand-new, beautiful, WebTree-powered site of ours. We spent a lot of hours in the past few weeks putting this together, and it debuted yesterday. We’re still working out a few kinks, but it’s mostly there. Make sure to check out the brand new project portfolio page, and our new Welcome Video on the home page.

With the new site, you’ll see a lot more content from us, including regular WebTree tips by Casey, essays on design and process, and more details about our company, from its people, to its products.

So go forth and enjoy the new site. If you haven’t worked with us before, you should! Give us a heads up at our project inquiries page, or drop us a line through the feedback form if you just want to say hi.

So relax, browse around, and welcome to the new AWP.