We’re getting close to winter here, but you wouldn’t know it from the weather! In November and December we continued to work with Hill Holliday on some pitch work as well as some banners for CVS. We also created a few interactive presentations for Nuance to show off their incredible technology. The Boston Globe Source Portal was delivered to their team of developers to implement into their system and we also launched an e-commerce storefront for Cassandra Salon. In the spirit of the season, we also launched a pro-bono website for Museums of Old York, helping them keep history alive.

It’s getting chilly in New Hampshire, but things are heating up at Raka. (Sorry for the terrible opening line.) This month we saw banners for Hood fly out the door to VIA as well as some for Killington that we designed and animated with our partners at Grove Marketing. We also continued our relationship with PromoCentric by designing and developing a sales campaign for them titled “Listen, Save, Relax, Repeat”.This campaign included print design, web design and copywriting. We also updated the Freedom MedTEACH application to include Spanish instruction videos and transcriptions. (This was especially fun for Duncan who edited the videos and could understand very little despite his 4 years of high school Spanish. Don’t worry, though, it was proofed by fluent people!) We ended the month on a high note by launching a website for Celtic Pharma.

Fall has fallen and Raka continued a hectic pace of designing and developing! New launches with VIA this month included a website for Back Yard Beauties (no, it’s a site about tomatoes), banners for Arrow International, Analog Devices and TD Banknorth. We also developed and help design a new website for VIA that helps show off their great work. In addition, we helped Hill Holliday with some design work and created some new eBay page designs for Direct Capital.

As August draws to a close, we’re reflecting on all the fun things that we got out there this month. An interactive demo CD-ROM for NextChoice, a DVD (complete with the DVD label and packaging) for Whole Foods Markets, an animated video presentation for Environmental Power, new XML-driven banner ads for American Ski Company (with our partner Grove Marketing), event registration websites for Freedom Fertility Pharmacy and, for EDT, a website and interactive demo that combines video, Flash and 3D animation into an informative sales piece. PHEW. We didn’t notice how busy we were until all of a sudden it’s just about September. Dan and Duncan did save a little time to adopt puppies this month, though! Dan’s new handsome pit bull/black lab mix Cooper is no match for Duncan’s baby mini dachshund. Stop by the office to meet them as well as Zang’s excitable scrounger Marley.

The summer is rolling on and Raka turned two years old this month! This month we (along with our partner VIA) launched a microsite and supporting banner ads for CBS Radio. Check it out at www.radicallyconnected.com or read more about it in our portfolio. We also created a whole bunch of new banner ads for TD Banknorth (again, with VIA) and kept moving forward with new projects for EDT and many others. Stay tuned for more launches in August!

Another wunderkind(er) joins the fold! We’re very happy to welcome Charlie Howell, late of Bresette + Company, formerly of wunderkind studios. Charlie’s mix of fresh design, animation and 3-D chops will help propel Raka towards our goal of world domination. It was a really busy day for us, because we also launched Summer Art Circle, a new community site for summer associates at New York law firms, focused on patronage of the arts and all they have to offer in New York.

Today we launched a brand new website for PromoCentric, a promotional marketing products company (and source of the Raka chocolate bars that we sent in 2004). The PromoCentric site incorporates a catalog of 10,000+ products from dozens of vendors, an idea saver wherein registered users can keep their promotional ideas and live chat with sales staff.

We’ve moved! OK, so it’s just across the hall, but we’re enjoying our new space (150% more than original formula Raka!). We finally have enough space in our conference room to stretch our legs. There are three fireplaces, 14-foot ceilings and a gun rack above the mantel (I’m not kidding). Stop by for a visit!

The redesigned Direct Capital site has launched. In addition to the main site, we created a complementary design for the Direct Capital Mortgage Services website. We have also just wrapped up a Flash ad banner campaign for the American Skiing Company, owners of such prestigious ski properties as Sugarloaf, Killington and Steamboat, and we’re hard at work on a DVD for Whole Foods Market.

2006 keeps rolling with the launch of the NextChoice website. Formerly known as Nimesa (and ffastsystems before that), NextChoice is creating custom kiosks for fast food ordering. With the renaming and rebranding of the company, they needed a slick new website that could speak to both investors and customers.