Don Sparkman is the president of his own graphic design firm, Sparkman + Associates, Inc., in Washington, D.C. He founded the company in 1973, and he has personally won numerous awards for design excellence, locally, nationally, and internationally.� His firm has developed graphic communications for AT&T, Black and Decker, Cable and Wireless, Coors, Eckerd Drugs, Fortran Communications, GE, Marriott, MCI, Mobil, NASA, Ogilvy & Mather, National Institutes of Health, Rubbermaid, U.S. Postal Service, and most recently the logo and graphics standards for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). In 1976, Don was selected by the President of the United States and the U.S.… Bicentennial Committee as one of three designers to judge the design validity of all commemorative items developed for the nation's bicentennial. He is twice a past-president of the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington (ADCMW) and past president of the International Design by Electronics Association (IDEA). He created the Graphic & Web Design Trade Customs for the ADCMW and IDEA, and has been published in Step-by-Step magazine. He has also lectured at the Design Management Institute's National Conference in Martha's Vineyard; George Washington University's Design Center in Washington, DC.; Northern Virginia Community College; the Corcoran School of Art; the American Institute of Graphic Arts; and many other institutions. His first book, Selling Graphic Design, was conceived because of Sparkman's acute awareness of the problems encountered by those selling design who have had no formal training. Don has been selling design for his firm for over thirty years, and he knows the tricks of the trade. In order to keep providing excellent service, Don has immersed his firm in the new technologies. In 1985 he bought a Lightspeed computer design system, which was one of the pioneer systems and very powerful for its time. Now, every designer in his firm works on the latest computer design system and is online. His firm is currently creating Web sites for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Small Business Administration, as well as private sector clients. While the Internet is an exciting electronic universe, Sparkman still believes the computer is just another design and communication tool, and that only people are designers. Don feels that "a computer has no imagination, and if we think it will serve up ideas, we cease being designers." This philosophy has helped him keep his company on the leading edge of technology, while not forgetting why it's there. �