CASE STUDY

Cunningham Swaim, LLP

Project type: website redesign, rebranding, UI/UX
2018

Context:
This multi-city law firm, based in Dallas, Texas was looking to completely update their look from what was online. The firm felt that the visual narrative didn’t fit the firm’s agile and precise legal work. The firm also felt that their previous site was too dark and gloomy, however the logo branding and other marketing materials both played into the darker look and feel. 

Consultation:
There were multiple points though, based on their product mix, to bring the firm more on trend  but in a way that would also better play off the firm’s goals. We also discussed the differences between “dramatic’ and “dark” and how we could use drama to visually define the firm. It was with this goal in mind that I began designing a site concept to present to the firm.

Challenges:
Prior to our first meeting, it was brought to my attention that the project stakeholders rarely agreed and were extremely difficult to impress, so being able to both explain my design choices and articulate the concept in a way that they could understand would be imperative.

Project Scope:

• Updated the typefaces to give the site a very clean look and feel
• Identified and implement a color scheme that brought drama, but could still feel lighter than the firm’s previous site
• Used practice-related images that bridged the gap between traditional navigation images and something that felt newer and fresher
• Employed a very sleek and up-to-date navigation structure that would translate well from desktop to mobile environments
• Implemented non-traditional animation styles, in this case, lazy load and parallax features that take animation out of the banner