It was just a few weeks ago that La Palina Cigars asked us if we could design and produce a website in time for their summer launch parties. It was a tight deadline, and a few of us may have drank more coffee than normal to complete the project, but we met it. Right on schedule, La Palina Cigars went live this past Wednesday just in time for the NYC launch party that was recently written up in the Wall Street Journal. We’re looking forward to attending the DC launch tomorrow.

A distinctive feature of the La Palina cigar is its band which features ornate, gold-flake embossing that frames a hand-drawn portrait of owner William Paley’s grandmother (the original “La Palina”). It seemed only right to re-adapt such a beautiful feature for use on the website. The Victorian flourishes, embossed and serifed text, and warm hues on the site reflect La Palina’s rich history.

Fast forward to several months down the road when Todd came asking if we’d ever gotten around to answering his questions.  Of course we had… and they’d been sitting as a draft in Ian’s outbox the whole time.  Oops.  Sorry Todd!  Better late than never, hopefully?

Anyhow, go give the post a read if you’d like to learn a bit more about ripe!  There are even some fun pictures of us from way back when Brad Trent shot us for the Business Week article, and we begged him to do some profile shots while he was in the studio.  So, you know… we’re not just random pieces of fruit and glasses of wine like the Team section of our web site suggests.

Soon after they sent Brad Trent down from New York to photograph the ripe team and the studio.  What followed was a long, long day of shooting where Creative Director Tomás was heard stating several times, “Oh God, all this smiling is making my cheeks ache.”  Besides Tomás’ aching cheeks, however, it was a great experience.  It was a blast having Brad, his assistant Bo, and Business Week’s art director, Mike in the office… and we even surreptitiously snapped a few shots of our own to document the event. Afterwards it was a night of pizza and wine at Matchbox in Chinatown.

The article released yesterday in Business Week: Small Biz, and is also available online.  It details the green practices of six different businesses including a printer, an antifreeze recycling company, a beverage wholesaler and others.   A big thanks to the whole Business Week team for their thoroughness and effort.

So… want to know ways to make your business greener?  Why not read the article, or head over to the Greener section of the ripe site.  Although the first option is probably the most entertaining — there’s a picture in there where Tomás has a tree growing out of his head.  Or if you’re really serious, why not give Adrienne Spahr, our friend from Green Living Consulting, a call?  She’s helped us more than we possibly could have imagined.