My Graphic/Web Design History » TRW (1998-2003)

Discovering Montana (2000)

John — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:42:43 +0000

I worked solo with ITSD on this project to redesign the State of Montana’s homepage. I started with a rough mockup that they commissioned from an advertising agency in Billings and took it from there. I managed the entire project from inception to delivery. It was implemented in Adobe GoLive at the request of the client, as that was the tool they wanted to use to maintain it after delivery.

The biggest challenge, as it was with most sites of the time, was cross-browser consistency and display. The war between Netscape and Internet Explorer was raging and neither of them fully supported cascading stylesheet standards (though the latter was especially bad). Another consideration was accessibility as the state has to cater to all of its citizens. At the time, and after many discussions, the client and I decided to create a template system that utilized a text-only layout for those who needed it, and a fully-styled version. Both used the same content files so that updating the site would not be a nightmare of version control. I thought it fairly ingenious for static HTML (with server-side includes) and no formal content management system. Through later usability testing by the University of Montana it was discovered that this was not in fact the best way to serve disabled users.

A design feature of the site was the ability to easily update the masthead at the top of the page and the semi-circular image on the left. Not only could the site be “freshened” this way, the templates could also be reused for other agency web sites, and it was. This design was reused, and these are just the clones I created, for the following:

Department of Revenue
Department of Corrections (templates only)
Information Technology Services Division (templates only)
Risk Management and Tort Defense Division
Commissioner of Political Practices
State Tax Appeal Board
Montana Consensus Council
Montana Historical Society, Encountering Montana: Lewis and Clark in Montana (design change)
Legislative Services Division (design change)

After the launch of the original Discovering Montana site, and at the urging of the client, I was given a Special Award (12/6/2000) for my efforts by TRW for the project.

Then, after another company came in to do some other systems work for the state, they started calling themselves “Discovering Montana” and claimed all my work as their own.

Years later the design/templates were eventually discarded completely and redesigned in-house by ITSD. All web design for the state was brought in-house by 2003 and I had to go a different direction with my career at Northrop Grumman.

Risk Management and Tort Defense Division (2002?)

John — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:55:39 +0000

This is the second incarnation of the RMTD web site. The first version I designed and developed in 1999 was completely old school, with tables for layout and font tags. After Discovering Montana launched in 2000 and several agency web sites were assimilated to the new design, the RMTD director grudgingly had us assimilate his site. A year or two later they brought me back in to further refined and “tightened up” the design. I believe this is the first of the many Discovering Montana clones I’ve uploaded. Only the “back-end” or infrastructure/templates of Discovering Montana was cloned for Legislative Services.

Note: I’ll have to verify the date this was launched.

TRW On the Move (1999)

John — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:45:23 +0000

At the start of 1999 TRW was located in two separate buildings, one downtown and one in the Northgate shopping center. In October of that year, both offices moved to one location on the east side of town, occupying the first floor of a newly built, state-owned building. I was asked to create a moving announcement for publication the local paper.

I kept if fairly simple. Naturally I used the TRW Roadshow images. In my recollection, however, I seem to recall this ad having a this architectural rendering of the building fading into a real picture, one I took of the finished building from about the same angle. I’ll look for it. I may have published that image only in the employee newsletter.

FYI, we are still in the same building 10 years later.

Update: Found it…

Best Kept Secret in Helena (1999)

John — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:00:22 +0000

This ad, created in my second year at TRW, was the start of a move to publicize the company in the local community with some mild PR. I was able to have some fun with it and inject a bit of whimsy. It appeared in the Helena Independent Record.

Economic Impact Summary (2001)

John — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:51:35 +0000

TRW (now Northrop Grumman) in Helena publishes a summary of how our company and group of employees effects the local economy. It includes everything from education information to home remodeling dollars spent here. Most years I’ve designed a cover for the document, usually involving a theme of growth or partnership with Montana. Before the purchase of TRW by Northrop Grumman in 2003 there were no guidelines at all for this design.

This particular year we move away from the growth theme and went in a global direction. As you can see I’m nothing if not literal as a designer. The images along the left edge were taken from a campaign of marketing materials I designed called the “TRW Roadshow.” I haven’t decided if I’m putting any of the Roadshow material up here, but you will see these six images show up elsewhere, even on the 2009 EIS cover. We believe in recycling at Northrop Grumman…

Economic Impact Summary (2000)

John — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:45:16 +0000

This particular year we stayed with the growth theme, and this design hits you over the head with it. The images in the circle were taken from a campaign of marketing materials I designed called the “TRW Roadshow.” I haven’t decided if I’m putting any of the Roadshow material up here, but you will see these six images show up elsewhere, even on the 2009 EIS cover. We believe in growth at Northrop Grumman as well as recycling…

Legislative Services (2002)

John — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:38:18 +0000

This site was built on the same basic architecture as Discovering Montana. That is, a basic template system using server-side includes (SSI) with separate text-only versions of every page, archaic browser sniffing and very rudimentary Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The client had wireframes ready to go and the design basically “figured out” before I held the kick off meeting.

The larger task was managing the huge volume of content and getting it reformatted for use in the new templates. There was only so much we could do with tools like Dreamweaver and it’s utility for cleaning up code. Most of it had to be combed through by hand. While I did have help on the client side, the majority of it fell in my lap. Still, the outcome was successful and the client was happy. And that’s the bottom line.

Who Wants to Be Rich (2001)

John — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:02:01 +0000

This is mostly just me farting around in Photoshop back in 2001 or so. IIRC, it was used for a sign at a company meeting to help introduce a new employee referral bonus program. I was either experimenting with custom Photoshop actions or I still had Kai’s Power Tools for Photoshop.

Montana Access Card (1999)

John — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:54:57 +0000

First version of the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card for DPHHS. Most of the aspects of this card were dictated by the client, including the marble background from the Virtual Human Services Pavilion (VHSP).

[Add link to VHSP]

This design is still in use and was later used by the card printing vendor to create a similar card for health care services, the “Montana Access to Health” Card, which was redesigned in 2009 by John Bedard.

St. Peter’s Hospital (1998)

John — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:33:08 +0000

Comments forthcoming.