The look of a proposal document is very important. Not only does it help convey the promise of a brand experience, but it has a very important role to play in conveying your message. If your document looks boring, it is likely (by definition) to lose your reader's attention. In fact, given the content may be dry, your look may need to work even harder to make want to people keep reading - and this goes way beyond brand colour, logo and typeface - your look includes graphic design to explain concepts (today there are even companies that specialise in proposal graphics). If your document looks unorganised, or is made up of many disparate pieces, your reader may feel they have to work too hard to get it. Your look also includes structure. Recognise that readers are unlikely to read neatly from front to back - so anticipate where they will go first and make it easy.  Readers are also likely to digest your material at two levels - "skim" and "read" - so make sure you capture your key messages in the skim, add an exec summary, and don't deluge them with text.  More tips on this topic are at RainToday (registration required).