Born in a basement as a family business in 1981, Bauer Dunham & Barr started out doing print production, newsletter publishing, and mail order fulfillment. Early customers included a health/lifestyle marketing firm, a document security company, and the University of Michigan athletic department.

In those ancient, 20th century days, work was done by driving across town with a floppy disk to get type "galleys" run out at a service bureau, then "keylining" the print onto bristol board with sticky wax or rubber cement. Exacto knives, T-squares, and non-repro blue pens were the tools of the trade.

BDB soon expanded, adding outside talent and moving into office/studio space do-it-yourselfed in a warehouse upstairs from a printing plant. We took a major capital equipment step, enabling us to run out our own type from files generated on Compugraphic typesetting computers, with Ann Arbor's first WYSIWYG monitor. Photography in 35mm and medium formats added another service to our lineup.

New clients came from the high-technology and environmental equipment industries and the professional sports arena. We also ventured into book and magazine production for the U-M Alumni Association, the Historical Society of Michigan, and other customers.

Then it was time for another quantum leap, into the computer graphics revolution. Video production became a large part of our business, on one of the area's pioneering Amiga/Video Toaster studio suites. Desktop publishing transformed our print production process, moving it into a Macintosh-based world that offered huge advances in efficiency and creative control.

Over the years, we have continuously reinvented the agency in response to our customers' evolving needs. The latest version of BDB has an increasingly large percentage of our work devoted to web-based media, most recently focusing on interactive, client-maintainable websites.

Historically, almost all of our customers have come to us by referral; we concentrate on developing fruitful, long-term working relationships. We will continue to expand our expertise into new fields, currently including biotechnology, retail merchandising, and institutional and municipal venues.