It can be a great benefit to have your veteran graphic designer attend the "press check"-the last phase of production for print communications.

"We will get a huge circus tent , with open sides on both ends to usher in and out the hundreds of guests that will attend. We will put our highest performance vehicles on display so visitors can touch and feel the quality. We will have mounted engines, chassis, cut-a-way models, accessories, performance charts and graphics, racing vehicles, performance tests, resource libraries, driving video games, give-a-ways, and live entertainment as well as high powered presentations and music."

Proposal Director Mike Schutz writes about SF330 development: how A/E firms can separate themselves from the pack by handing this standard form properly.

In the rush to the Web over the last dozen years, much attention has been given to the website "user experience". To a certain degree, this extensive dialogue has been reapplied to print marketing pieces as graphic designers strive to combine traditional print design with visual elements familiar to web users.

Here is the methodology that Trinity uses when performing backup and disaster recovery planning for a client. This article follows Is Your Network Data Backed Up? Are Your Sure?.

Here is an example of how the designer can help at a press check. I recently attended the press run of 25,000 4-Color books, which I had designed. After the job was set up on the press, I was called to look at the initial review sheets, and noticed that the registration (the 4 layers of overlapping process colors) was slightly off.

Mergers, acquisitions, and expanding product lines can create unique challenges when it comes to designing and producing trade show and retail product displays.

Below are 3 additional sets of preliminary designs created for CONFLUENCE Watersports. These trade show and retail displays explore optional approaches that allow the client to showcase their branded kayaks and kayak accessories.

One of the features of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) is built-in Developer Tools, and one of those tools is the ability to emulate Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). This would ostensibly make life easier for the developer. In fact, in development experience at Trinity such has not proven to be the case.

During my (lustrous) career using ColdFusion, I have seen a lot change! One of the most important changes was the introduction of Object Oriented Programming (OOP) interface with ColdFusion 6 in the year 2002. This finally provided a logical way to separate functions and procedures into discrete bundles for reuse. More features and improvements to the OOP interface were found in subsequent ColdFusion releases, continuing up to the present.

Branding isn’t just about a brand name and trademark—it is about personality development. A critical and foundational part of that personality is the language in which your company expresses itself.

Internet Explorer 8 can be customized in many ways, but some changes made directly to the browser--not a plug-in/add-in--will benefit power users the most. Here are two.

Trinity's graphic design process focuses intently on the client's need to communicate its message, mission, and unique benefits to its target audience.

Quality of coworkers, tools, and environment are three aspects of employee satisfaction that will occasionally often be neglected (to one degree or another) by employers. Yet, each has a major impact on staff retention.

Choose a typeface, and you’ve made a design decision. If something “as simple as that” has a great impact on the effectiveness of your written materials—and it certainly does—what impact will “more significant” decisions have?

Fundamentally, companies are human societies interacting with other societies. Like any human society, companies are laden with corporate or cultural virtues and vices that stem from human virtue and vice.

Trinity's Art Director discusses part of the design process in the creation of the Supplier Management Council logo for the Aerospace Industries Association.

Understanding how the government solicits business and evaluates proposals is critical for those who want to win contracts. This was discussed in Trinity's recent Proposals Done Right workshop.

The two largest contributing factors to Trinity's success are (1) the character of our staff and (2) their drive to discover better solutions to problems/challenges.

In today’s market, being on the web is imperative for most businesses. The degree to which each business needs a web presence is determined by the expectations of the market: you need to respond to the needs of your potential/current customers and keep your competitive advantage. These are the primary considerations when exploring the necessary scope of building a new web presence.

Q: What exactly are "industry standards and best practices" when it comes to proposal development? A: They are what you are promised by every proposal development firm under the sun.

In a previous article, I discussed using the proposal overview to ensure compliance. This article discusses a second compliance tool: shell documents, or the “proposal shell.”

Choose a typeface, and you’ve made a design decision. If something “as simple as that” has a great impact on the effectiveness of your written materials—and it certainly does—what impact will “more significant” decisions have?

Commercial graphic design is a coordinated process of mutual responsibilities between the client/employer and the graphic designer. This post is intended to be orienting, not comprehensive. However, if the following general principles are observed within projects, you increase the likelihood of getting a superlative design solution in the final product.

Beyond actually having the tools of the trade (or, the ability to produce excellent graphic design), being a good producer of graphic design solutions is about pursuing a true consultative approach.

I recently read an excellent book by David Travis, "The Fable of the User-Centered Designer". It's a short story about a young designer who learns the secrets of user-centered design from three clients of a designer he found in a nearby town. It is a very enjoyable read and the three little lessons learned are great reminders for any designer (or for any executive approaching a product/service design project).

Rough sketches (roughs) explore illustrative concepts and compositions in much the same way that thumbnails explore logo designs and layout concepts.

In today's crazy changing web world, a developer has to stay sharp, focused and knowledgeable to consistently deliver a great product. But this doesn't mean spending big bucks and precious sleep time in night class. Here are a few ways Trinity's web development team keeps up to date on the latest and greatest.

The basis of Trinity's marketing theory is knowledge gained through self-discovery. The path of vision to self-discovery is directly through the eyes of your market.

Trinity's SharePoint demo highlights some key advantages for generating ROI through proper configuration, deployment, and training.

In previous articles I wrote about IT efficiency and mentioned that having good tools impacts employee job satisfaction.

The goal of my recent Strategic and Business Planning workshop was to draw out the difference in roles between strategic and business plans. A good deal of interest is always placed on the difference in mindset in the two processes.

Movie buffs may be familiar with the 1965 classic The Agony and the Ecstasy, starring Charlton Heston as Michelangelo and Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II. If my memory serves me correctly, the movie portrays the painting of the Sistine Chapel, including the intellectual relationship between the two lead characters.

One of the unique challenges of business is to step outside of the usual operating mode in order to focus on your marketing message.

"If the customer wants the responses written in quill, printed on papyrus with a bow around it, please conform."

The proposal cover letter, properly constructed, is a vital part of the proposal that should not be neglected.

Outside of Christian expression, the title "evangelist" is one that has been applied either in an official or unofficial manner to the professional product enthusiast.

I’ve been working with non-profit organizations for 14 years. In that time, I’ve compiled a matrix for non-profit formation built not only on my own experiences, but also on expert consensus. This structure, called the Non-Profit Best Practice Concurrence Matrix%trade; (The Non-Profit Matrix™, for short), was first composed in my thoughts and project notes, subsequently researched, and then finally assembled into structured document/presentation form in early 2009.

Trinity's fondness and sympathy for non-profit concerns stems primarily from one source: our staff, who genuinely care about the greater good, and desire to make the world a better place.

In business as in life, the space between the current situation and an improved situation can seem very far. I think it is important for business development consultants and their clients to keep this in mind: not everything needs to happen at once.

Commercial printing has not "gone away" as some cyber publishing enthusiasts predicted. Environmentally friendly inks, high efficiency paper recycling, and state of the art presses have allowed commercial printing to remain an invaluable business communications medium. So, how do you get an important communications piece designed and printed? You enlist a print-savvy graphic designer and engage the Print-Design-Production-Cycle.

The promise of Trinity’s marketing approach is that it is based in truth. There’s no such thing as a “one size fits all” marketing approach. Who are you? Who does your customer want you to be; i.e, what is the truth of your situation? That’s what dictates your proper approach.

One of the important ways in which Trinity helps clients is by developing a "language" which the client uses to express its vision of itself—including its core beliefs, competencies, and products/services.

The SEE part of “See, Transform, Act” presents a roadmap for growing business through an effective market approach. In the TRANSFORM part of the model, the company readies itself for this approach by applying necessary internal change.

Trinity Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Pablo Gomez, led a roundtable discussion titled "Doing business with the Federal Government". This first in a two-part series focused specifically on best practices in Business Development and Capture Management.

Trinity Proposal Director Ryan Callaghan led a roundtable discussion titled "Doing business with the Federal Government, Part II". This second part of the presentation series begun in December 2008, focused specifically on proposal development and management best practices.

Trinity Consulting, Inc. (Trinity) is holding a two day "meet the experts" event to welcome members of the business community to meet and learn from Trinity's experts in the Strategic, Design, Web, Information Technology, and Proposal solution areas.

Trinity Consulting’s Meet the Experts event on May 12, 2010 proved a success, as members of the Northern Virginia business community gathered to learn more about Trinity’s consulting philosophy, expertise, and experience.

Within each subcategory of the uber-category "Business Development" there are many professional business consultants providing an extreme variance in value accompanied by an extreme variance in pricing.

A truly effective proposal does not merely present your solution; it distinguishes your company and solution from the competition.

Web Development is about conveying a message not about looking good. Very often the primary goals of web projects are focused on improving look and feel.

The proverbially tough proposal writer should keep these observations in mind when going through intense periods of challenge in the proposal season.

Here are five specific ways in which White-hat Reviews increase proposal development effectiveness, providing added value to the client through lower costs and a superior final product.

While Windows 7 is, in many respects, a great leap forward in terms of application compatibility, every so often we'll discover a basic functionality that Microsoft or a Microsoft partner has inadvertently run into the ditch.

Recently, I received two Microsoft Word documents containing the manuscript for a couple books I was about to design and typeset.

WSS (Windows SharePoint Services) is a tool that most small businesses don’t realize is out there.