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Branding and Website Design

Collins Collins Muir + Stewart

Since the beginnings as a father-and-son trial team in 1964, CCM+S has always operated on the principle of providing intelligent, aggressive representation for its clients by winning with skill, not size. Now with five offices throughout California, the attorneys continue to deliver efficient, cost-effective results for clients across the state.

Challenge

Create a presence that personifies a law firm

ONE400 sought to articulate a new brand identity and then design and execute a site around this vision. It’s easy to build an attractive website, but what sets our design work apart is the care we take in crafting a web presence that presents a firm’s particular identity to current and potential clients, as well as to the legal community as a whole. This begins well before we write the first line of code.

  • Creating a new logo mark that compliments the old (nod to the old)
  • Moving the firm into a more modern look and feel without overkill
  • Creating a Visual Consistency, Core messaging and Personality

Legacy firms that are hanging onto dated design can miss opportunities to engage with potential clients. Collins Collins Muir + Stewart realized that if they wanted to generate more leads, then they needed to modernize their brand and their online presence. They understood that a new website and a rebrand would showcase their firm’s core values and capabilities to potential clients and competitors.

Strategy

Let function dictate form

We started with the fundamentals. The primary function of a firm’s website is to introduce it to potential clients. What identity did CCM+S want to present? ONE400 developed a demographic and psychographic profile of the decision-makers the website needed to reach. Of course, every client is different. But as the firm’s focus is on litigation for small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs), we identified brand personality traits that conveyed experience and a record of success: Bold, Ready, Efficient, and Proven. We also wanted the website to reflect the firm’s accessibility, because SMBs want lawyers who will meet them at their level and be responsive to their concerns. With these guidelines in place, we got down to the nuts and bolts of designing the website.

Beyond introducing a firm to potential clients, a modern website needs to function as a marketing tool that helps to advance business goals.

  • Intuitive navigation
  • Mobile responsive design
  • Optimized for a conversion
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Results

ONE400 delivered us a brand identity and website that embodies the sophistication and versatility of our law firm. It makes an instant impression on current, potential clients, and competitors.
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Erin Dunkerly, Partner
Collins Collins Muir + Stewart

Smart. Clean. Effective.

First, we developed a new color scheme and logo. We chose a palette emphasizing electric blue, which has the psychological effect of suggesting trustworthiness and competence. For the logo, we started with the firm’s existing symbol, based on structural beams which reflected its original architecture-focused practice. How could we redevelop this logo while retaining the brand equity it embodied? After exploring a variety of different options, we devised a two-toned ‘plus sign’. This logo reflects the firm’s expansive expertise, while visually recalling the structural beams of the past.

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mobile view frame
mobile view frame

We gave the site a sleek, modern look via photography showcasing CCM+S attorneys at work, in order to highlight the firm’s down-to-earth, person-to-person approach to serving clients. Our photographer worked with the attorneys at CCM+S offices to shoot a portfolio based on proven images from stock photos from which we chose the shots that best expressed the firm’s dynamism and energy.

Additionally, we revamped the look and content of the attorney directory and biographies—a crucial element of the website for attracting new clients. Our photographer shot portraits of each attorney, giving them an appealing, cohesive aesthetic. We rewrote the biographies in a uniform tone and structure, and created a tab-driven organizational scheme to better highlight each attorney’s credentials and accomplishments. We also created a search bar for the landing page, allowing the visitor to easily navigate to information about a specific attorney, or to search by location, practice area, or education.

Our complete redesign of the site gave CCM+S a consistent aesthetic and personality congruent with its core message. The firm now employs the visual elements we developed beyond its website– in the letterhead, business cards, and other materials that form its brand identity.

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