From us here at openbox9 to you, congrats on getting through another year!

Congrats on making so many improvements in the way you see the world, treat others, treat yourself, and well, just congrats on becoming a better person! We think you’re pretty awesome, and while we understand that need to question yourself and make plans to improve with every year that you are blessed to be given, we’d also like to reward you with the challenge to Enjoy the Process. After all, you only have one life, but we grow with every moment we’re given. Bask in your accomplishments for a moment!

Blessings and peace to you this New Year!

I will NOT tell you about whether gators can fly – you’ll have to go next year to find out.

openbox9 Mascot Carlee leads the pack of hikers into the wild

Mascot Kathleen pets Swampy the aligator

Our logo (designed to look like a patch) made into a real patch - cool.

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To see some of our other work for NWF, we all invite you to click here.

Before you begin writing your RFP, its essential to have done some research into your needs. About.com has a good example, “Don’t issue an RFP for a machine that can produce 1500 widgets per hour when you have never sold more than 25 a month.”

Its appropriate to distinguish between the things you will expect will be done (needs) and things you’d like done (wants). For instance, its acceptable to write that the chosen company will design, develop, and launch an fundraising site and may travel to present the final product to the board. It’s your job to distinguish between necessities and elective responsibilities in the RFP, so give it thought.

Know your budgetary limitations, desired timeline, and the quality you’re expecting. The old saying is you can only choose 2 of those three – know which two are most important to the success of the project.

Writing the RFP

Now that you’ve got a good hold on your needs, wants, and restrictions you can begin to organize and write your RFP. Below, we’ve listed out the main components that you’ll most likely want to include.

1. About Us Section

This is usually a paragraph describing your organization; it should include its mission, size, history, primary business objectives, and current URL (for more information or as a reference in itself).

2. Brief Project Description (Statement of Need)

This can be a paragraph describing your current relevant products/services, etc. If you’re requesting a Web site, be sure to specify your current site situation, and overview of the project. Explain the motivation for this project (ie. what’s prompting the project starting at this time), key audience information, and final delivery date requirements (for the product or service).

3. Requirements

Every project has parameters that need to be worked within, be clear about everything known such as branding guidelines; technical specifications; printing budgets; approval process; and many more only known to your group.

4. Define Roles

Will you be passing this project over fully to the chosen design firm? Note in the RFP if they are expected to establish and maintain the timetable, hold your company accountable for certain resources, etc. This is something that can be easily overlooked, but—if clarified before the project begins—can make accountability and delivery smooth sailing.

5. Proposal Requirements

What do you want to know about the companies that are bidding for this project?  Too many RFP’s are created from boilerplates that ask many questions that end up not being pertinent to how you will evaluate the design studio. Take time to list what criteria you will evaluate on so you are matching up the strengths of your team with the strengths of that firm’s. Questions can be: company history, links, work samples / case studies, methods, process, references, and I think the most important one is who will be leading the project and the team they’ll assemble. Many times, the design company has an account executive write the proposal but the awarded project gets handed to someone else to manage later — find out as much as you can about the team responsible for your project.

Note: Most design studios have spent an incredible amount of time developing processes and procedures to provide a high quality of ideas while maintaining efficiencies. Rigid requirements in a RFP may result in studios not replying to RFPs or an increase in the cost.

6. Proposal Deadline and Contact Information

Be clear about the cutoff point and the means for the applicants to submit their proposals. You can specify “no calls,” give a specific number or email address for questions that may pop up, and can designate different contacts for questions and final proposals that are submitted.

TIP

An applicant’s ability to submit their proposal to the guidelines that you’ve expressed can be a good indicator of their merit as a partner in the project.

Sending It Out

It’s a digital world. You can use postage and mail your RFP to companies that you think might be a good fit for the project, but you should also consider posting it online to broaden the spectrum of bidders or sending out an email to a company mailing list.

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I invite you to also view our portfolio page to see what we’ve accomplished for our clients. Openbox9 is currently accepting RFPs.

Every year, there is a sour pickle in my bowl of jolly cereal. I love football but that pickle is the name of my Washington DC’s team – the “***skins”. I find it messed up that our nation’s capital perpetuates an offensive name but there is a re-branding solution to every communication problem. By removing the offensive “red” from “skin” and replacing it with “potato” — modify the image as shown and everything gets resolved. No fan will even notice but those rightly angered by the name will.

While i’m burying the old team name lets go all the way and declare that the team is not even in Washington but in Maryland – Prince Georges County.

So now we can cheer for the P.G. County Potatoskins with peace of mind that they are both geographically and politically corrected. Have great season spuds!

Interested in sporting a Potatoskin tshirt?

We want to hear from you because we can’t decide if we should print some off! You can vote by hitting the “like” button below.

This Independence day, I ask that you not only enjoy the pageantry of men in grilling aprons, the whiff of a sizzling grill or a heartedly chorus of yankee doodle — I ask you to soak in all the graphics. Our flag in all of is glory, is a really nice strong brand. The colors alone evoke such heavy polarized emotions. Can you name any company, rockstar or athletic team brand that is more recognizable than the USA’s stars and stripes — red, white and blue?

I’m not trying to be a patriotic zealot, bent on displaying egocentric bombastically charged nationalism, I’m just talking about recognizable visual brands. I am partial though… I do heart the USA. I am also aware there are living people in the states that could tell me what the golden arches represent but might not be able to tell me what the stars and stripes represent. By no ignorance on their part mind you, there are just that many companies, federal agencies, clothing lines, auto dealers and so on that are riding the powerful USA brand’s coat tails. Since forever, our national graphical elements have been used to sell so much and convey so many messages — ponder how so many brands borrow from the USA — does it hurt the image of the USA? Or for a designer are these elements trite and to be avoided?

It’s no secret that designers (especially in the DC area) are constantly trying to freshen up the graphical symbols of America but in the end we succumb to the proven graphical elements – stars, stripes, eagles, blue fields… and that’s okay because as you will see this fourth of july, its a strong brand.

The herald Ceagle

Here at openbox we did a mash-up of our beloved majestic eagle and our secondary American love — the cow. We refer to is as the “ceagle.” Will this new image become the seal of a new federal agency… we hope so. Secretaries of agencies, we await your phone call… we await your call too dairy farmer associations.

Where do those keywords come from and who defines them anyways?

You do. So, lets take a step back in order to take a step forward.

The evolution of the Internet and the birth and popularity of the search engine has changed the game a bit, but keywords have actually been around a lot longer. When your nonprofit was just starting, it had to define its mission, objectives, audience, etc. This is when keywords were formally documented or like most, a barrage of meetings where words rained down. Either way keywords were a foundational part of your brand in the beginning and in all your communication efforts.

Some Tips on developing keywords for your new organization or a refreshment for your existing brand:

• Write a list of words you want your audience to associate with your nonprofit
  • Break down your audience types to have more specific results (IE: donors, volunteers, sponsors, partners, policyholders, etc)

• Describe what your nonprofit does in a few sentences, then take out all extraneous words (the, of, you, and by) and take out conjunctions
  • If words you’re left with in this exercise aren’t in line with how you want your audience to view your nonprofit then you have a problem!
• Repeat the last step with the mission statement of your competitor
  • Remove what’s not in line with your nonprofit’s goals
  • Put these results in your back pocket.
• Synonyms – off to the side list out like-minded words

Before the Internet, keywords were the ones that stuck after a commercial, advertisement, or discussion about a brand (non-profit or for-profit) and were often a part of a tagline. Once your keywords are developed they should appear often in all appropriate communications to build the strength of your brand. Your internal and external communications, casual and professional office communications should be in the habit of using various keywords to the point where it’s automatic and essential. It’s like a mantra for your organization, which has the power to encourage your nonprofit to always reach for its goals and in turn constantly remind your audience (and online users) what you’re about.

Stepping up to the Internet.

Once keywords are built into your whole brand, strengthening it, you’re part of the way to having accurate and high-ranking search results on the web.

Some Tips on using keywords to strengthen your nonprofit’s search engine stats:

• Include keywords in your main page headers
  • The main navigation can say “Volunteer,” but the landing page for the section will be much more informative and useful if it is reinforced with a keyword (IE: “Volunteer to Protect Wildlife”).
• Include keywords in your cross-promotional links
  • Your organization might describe an opportunity to donate to help a specific cause in an internal page with a call to action “donate now” which takes the user to a specific donation page. If you want someone that hasn’t found that page, and hasn’t found that link to find that specific donation page through search engine searches (who wouldn’t?!) then its helpful for that link to read something more like: “Donate to Earthquake Victims Now”
• Ad descriptive captions with keywords to charts, images, and graphics
• Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our California office” not “our office”) to help you get found in local searches.
• Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you must have the name of your organization in it, put it at the end.
• Content freshness can help improve your rankings and adds relevancy. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis.
• And much much more…

We at openbox9 enjoy helping think through these critical strategies, so if you’d like to talk to us about this more just give us a call, email us, or respond below to start a dialogue.

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I invite you to also view our services page to see our current offerings.

Wrapping up

National Wildlife Federation is about to launch its crazy sized blog – over 32 separate blog sites merged into WordPress MU and openbox9 is designing and developing it all.

9Marks will shortly launch its extreme web makeover that we designed and developed in Drupal

WeSupport is a great new start-up that is about to go public in late april that we helped with its full branding and online application design

eCards, ecards eCards – we just finished up the designs and are going into development for NWF’s eCard offering AND we designed eCards to help celebrate Earth Day for Bank of America, Entergy, Alcoa and Pew Center!

Basics Conference 2010 is almost here so we are in the final thrust to complete the print materials.

Wrapped up

Access Partners are the proud owners of a new website, brochure and exhibit booth design – to quote the client: “YAY! This makes me so happy! It looks so good.”

Bank of America’s Make an Impact design is off to the developers and should launch soon

Imagine Schools across the nation are getting fresh brochures in both english and spanish – oh si, we speak espanol… no we don’t but we love formatting spanish copy.

Just started wrapping

The GraceDC church plant website design… 9Marks eJournal cover designs… Convio donation form study with NWF… flash animations… Tilev Design portfolio site (should be hot)… preparing taxes… eating some pie… don’t worry, we have time to help you with your endeavors – contact us today!

Can addressing gender issues in the marketplace improve the programs that USAID is implementing overseas? Can these countries gain economic growth and lasting poverty reduction through understanding these gender inequalities as obstacles? I do not want to spoil the reading of thousands of hard worked research but… yes is the answer to both.

December saw the end to years of research for the folks working on the “Greater Access to Trade Expansion (GATE)” project under the Women in Development IQC funded by USAID’s Office of Women in Development. openbox9 was brought in the autumn of 08 to assist in the design of reports, interactive CDs, posters, folders, a major website and the crown jewel — a 150 page handbook filled with charts, examples and diagrams.

Throughout all the pieces, openbox9 maintained a consistent brand for the GATE project while also staying within the brand of USAID. Developing this “sub-brand” for GATE illustrated that within USAID there was wiggle room to express a unique subject. We at openbox9, personally appreciated the challenge of connecting all these pieces into one cohesive study.

Our hope is that these reports and websites have a meaningful impact — one that can shape the future of USAID’s programs and ensure that trade-related efforts encompass the poor and women of those nations.

We are by no means celebrating openbox9 but more giving thanks for all the incredible work we’ve been blessed to work on. Without our clients we are openbox-zero.

Here’s what the folks at openbox9 will be doing on this grand day of nines (in case you’re asking):

1. Wrapping up an annual report for a charter school organization making a difference in the lives of 37,000 students — Imagine Schools.
2. Continuing our efforts designing websites for the org that is helping preserve the wildlife for our children – National Wildlife Federation. To date we’ve designed over 30 unique screens and 6 subsites. Not to mention some branding work.
3. Hard to think about Christmas on September 9th, 2009 but we are designing the online catalog for Food for the Hungry where you can purchase needed gifts on someone’s behalf to help feed the poor.
4. John Calvin you’re 500 years old. We are fortunate enough to design the promotional materials for the “Calvin in the Capital” speaker series at Christ Reformed Church.
5. Our grand friends at Parkside Church will soon have a welcome booklet hot off the printing press.
6. We will also be brainstorming ideas for a buck-rogers themed Crossroads church gathering. Last year we did an elephant on a tightrope for the bigtop theme… submit ideas please!
7. A community cannot thrive unless both genders play a part in development. This is the study of USAID and we are in the midst of designing a plethora of materials including a 100 page field handbook.
8. We’ll be checking in on the BEFORE project google ad buys and making necessary adjustments.
9. Then nine small tinkle tweaks to Taggle’s social-networking site design; nine push-ups everytime someone says nine, nine, nine; and the putting the final touches on a interactive website filled with databases galore (you didn’t know we programmed? Oh yeah we program with vigor and panache).

Those are the nine things we’ll be slinging our computer mouse’s to as we sing to the band The Ting Tings. What nine things will you do?

Craving more updates from openbox9 – check out the refreshed portfolio.