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Hey Anvil, Who Made You? By Kent Lewis and Greg Coyle The Long, Rocky, Itchy, Exciting, Drunken, and Occasionally Amusing Rise to World Domination   Failed Anvil Brand Products 13 reasons why you shouldn't license your brand   Anvil Employee Interviews by Sid Haddock II The inside scoop on life at Anvil from past and current employees 40 Notable People Those who've served on the Anvil staff, and the reason for their dismissal Logo Timeline Reliving 18 years of design evolution Bus One Seven by Roderick Armageddon Backstage pass

Reality
Bytes Me
By Kent Lewis

I can’t stand it anymore. The questions, the accusations, the paternity suits. It’s time to clear the air and tell the real story behind Anvil. It’s a long, rocky, itchy, exciting, drunken and occasionally amusing tale, but one worth telling, nonetheless. For the April issue, the Anvil staff has put in long days and late nights in an effort to deliver a detailed and entertaining account of Anvil’s evolution, worthy of PBS. So sit back, relax and get the inside scoop on your favorite ezine.

We start with a very thorough historical account of Anvil, from pictographs to multimedia, from cave dwelling to summer homes in Aspen, garage operation to a media empire, PBR happy hours to Dom in Las Vegas. It’s all there (with express written permission from 60 Minutes).

Running an operation like Anvil gets expensive, especially the psychic readings and gourmet chef-concocted staff lunches. To help pay the bills, we’ve opted to license out the Anvil brand on several occasions, and paid the price. Check out our complete list of failed Anvil products. Before I get a slew of angry letters from Anvil brand purists, just let me clarify that our brand manager left for Disney 10 months ago.

We’re proud to say that Anvil has been voted one of Portland’s Top Businesses to Work For in 2001. We’d prefer to show you rather than just tell you, however. We’ve conducted an interview of past and present Anvil employees and encouraged them to share their stories. Due to the sensitive nature of select employees’ departures, it should be noted that attorneys were present when requested.

Not all employees have, however, been as stellar as those interviewed. We’ve had our share of sketchy and difficult writers, producers and managers in the past. Forty Notable People is a compilation of some of our better-known hires (and fires).

When licensing out the Anvil brand for various products and endorsements, we realized that having a relevant, distinctive logo was critical. We thought you’d enjoy a brief timeline of some of our most recent logos and the reasoning (or lack thereof) behind them. It’s amazing to look back and see how far we’ve come.

If you’ve read this far, congratulations. You must be very bored at work, or not working at all. Either way, after years of sending the poor schlep around the world looking for stories, Roderick Armageddon has put together an entertaining behind-the-scenes look at his experience scouting industry trade shows for the next big thing. That should keep you entertained if not distracted, or least give your wounds some time to heal.

Last and definitely not least, don’t forget to check out The Anvil Gallery this month, where we share our earliest attempt at Flash animation. Don’t get crushed by the reality of it all.