Case Study: Strategic Partnership with Triangle Printers Pays Off
for Northwestern University
"In a perfect world," says Brad Farrar, "we would allow ourselves plenty of time."

Of course, this world is far from perfect. But Farrar thinks the service he gets from Triangle Printers is awfully close.

Farrar is writer and production manager for the School of Continuing Studies at Northwestern University, where he works at the downtown Chicago campus. The School serves many professionals in an intensely competitive environment where a dozen other high-quality colleges and universities are vying for students from the downtown population.

So it's crucial that Northwestern's informational and marketing materials be of the highest quality in design and production, and that they be timely as well. The test is never tougher than when, several times a year, the School produces a full-color insert advertisements to be carried in major city newspapers. The inserts may be a single sheet or as many as six pages; the kind of paper varies and, as befits one of the nation's best schools, the information and the finished product itself must be perfect.

Add to this the absolute nature of newspaper deadlines, and the situation can quickly become tense.

"We've had a number of fairly large projects with very tight deadlines," Farrar says. "And one way or another, whether it's design or gathering information or some unforeseen factor, we always run up against time constraints."

When that happens, "Triangle always delivers," Farrar says. "Not only do they take care of the printing, obviously; they also coordinate with the delivery of the finished product to the newspapers. We're running these inserts in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Reader - papers that have strict deadlines. So we really need that reliability, and Triangle has it."

As in so many business relationships, much depends on the people involved - and here, too, Triangle is tops, Farrar says.

"Steve Goerth is the salesman who works with us, but he is so much more than a salesman," he says. "With Steve, it's a case of giving him the file and the job gets done. If something comes up, he handles it. If there's a question, he gets the answer. He'll ask for my help if he needs it, but he rarely needs it!"

Goerth, a longtime print professional whose M.S. in management came from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Business, takes his alma mater's needs in stride. "It's tough for schools to work in a timely fashion," he says, "because so often they're getting last-minute information themselves on class schedules, room locations and so forth. You have to bridge that gap between getting the information and getting it out fast."

His long experience in the business and with Northwestern gives Goerth the edge at that gap, despite the double pressures of time-sensitive content and full-color production. Not only does Goerth revel in on-time, under-budget delivery; he provides in Triangle a complete creative team ready to meet every customer's marketing needs, from conceptualization and design to website development - all at user-friendly prices.

"I believe of all our clients that they need a partner as well as a printer," Goerth says. "My goal is to make Triangle that partner."

Triangle clients can choose custom printing for high-profile, full-color presentations. Triangle also offers customers a value printing option, which produces high quality materials-including catalogs, postcards, brochures, rack literature and posters-at about half the cost of custom printing. Additionally, the company's Creative Services Department provides graphic design, copywriting and photography for a variety of projects.

For more information about Triangle Printers Inc., please call Bonnie Dayan at 847-675-3700.