WESTBOROUGH, MA – Today Wakefly, a full-service marketing agency, announced that it won a Bronze Award in the Business to Business category of the 2005 Horizon Interactive Awards for its design of the Aura Communications, Inc. website. (
http://www.auracomm.com/).
The Horizon Interactive Awards, an annual competition comprising 10 business categories, recognizes excellence in interactive media production. A panel of industry professionals judges each entry based on five design criteria: solution creativity and originality, overall graphic design, communication of message, technical merit, and effectiveness of solution. Judges award projects Gold, Silver, Bronze or Honorable Mention distinctions. Projects earning Gold are eligible to compete for the Best of Category and Best of Show Awards.
According to Mike Sauce, President of Horizon Interactive Awards, “We are pleased to present this award to Wakefly for the Aura Communications design. The competition has very high standards, and in 2005 the competition was fierce. The work this year has certainly raised the bar once again. We awarded Wakefly the Bronze award because it employed several important elements. The visuals were just enough to break up the text and provided a good visual balance. The site loaded quickly and the menu structure was clean and easy to use."
Other industry professionals concur. According to George Allendorf, a graphic designer and President of Dega Solutions, “This is a special site because the design is very open and clean. It’s easy to navigate, and it’s effective use of white space complements, rather than detracts, from the content. Surfing the Aura website is a real pleasure, both from the perspective of a graphic designer, who appreciates the finer points of Wakefly’s design, and the average end-user, who can quickly find what he’s looking for.”
For Aura Communications, a pioneer in wireless technology for personal electronics, artistic and design concerns were dominant factors in their decision to hire Wakefly. According to Dan Cui, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Aura, “This award confirms what we originally thought about Wakefly when we selected them. We were searching for a designer with top artistic ability and depth of conceptual design: a company that could take our concepts and ideas and implement them creatively. It’s good to know we picked the right company.”
In addition to design competency, Wakefly was an effective partner in the development process. According to Dan Cui, “Wakefly’s people were very cooperative throughout the project and went out of their way to work with us and help us understand their process. And we are very pleased with the end result: the site’s worlds above what we had before. I’d recommend Wakefly to anybody looking for innovative web design services.”
The Wakefly design process is intended to service clients in this way. According to Tim Hawkins, Wakefly’s Art Director, “I’m thrilled about this award. I believe our design methods really served the client’s best interests. I worked closely with Aura’s people to develop three distinct design concepts for their review. I explored different ways to represent product information graphically, and balanced time-honored design traditions with some modern technologies, like Macromedia Flash, to deliver Aura’s message. I’m very pleased with the end result.”
Wakefly’s methods focus on the client’s business needs. According to Jonathan Baer, Director of Marketing for Wakefly, “Aura built a new chip, and was planning to attend a major trade show as part of the launch of this new product, but their old site was confusing from both a navigation and messaging standpoint, resulting in poor quality leads. In addition, the site made the company look like a start up, causing the company to lose credibility from a sales perspective. Wakefly created a site with a very professional, established look and feel, that showed applications of the chip, making it easier for Aura’s target market to quickly and easily understand the benefits of this new chip.”
About Wakefly
Wakefly is an innovative marketing company that develops powerful and effective integrated marketing campaigns that generate qualified leads. Based in Westborough, MA, the company provides a comprehensive array of creative, design, copywriting, planning and production services in the following areas:
1. Integrated campaigns to generate qualified leads: Direct mail, email, and events like webinars and seminars
2. Collateral:
Brochures, white papers, data sheets, case studies, enewsletters, trade show booths, banner ads and print ads
3. Branding and Identity:
Logos and tag lines; Messaging/Positioning
4. Web sites:
Web site design and redesign, search engine optimization, keyword marketing, and content management