CRA is a competitions law firm who had an old, outdated site in need of a refresh. They wanted to keep their original content but house it in a more modern, clean and professional website. I worked on the project from the ground up, creating wireframes, interactions, layout designs, typography and iconography.
The Challenge
Make it clear what CRA do, put more emphasis on their capabilities, and organise a vast amount of case studies, blogs, news articles, events and employee profiles into easily navigable structures. All while using existing assets - and creating some new ones - to create a clean and modern site.
Wireframes
The wireframing process was all about bringing what CRA do to the forefront, along with some other refinements to usability and interactions. The previous website was very text heavy and didn't readily offer any explanation of what CRA did.
I ensured that what they did and who they are was the first thing that was presented to the user, prioritising their mission statement and the sectors in which they work.
Further into the site I worked on reorganising their lists of case studies into a more easily scannable structure and added a filter to aid in discovery, and assembled news articles, blog posts, events and publications into a more visual format more akin to a news site rather than the text heavy lists that were there before.
Colour Palette & Typography
The brand was lacking a specific palette and, over the years, a litany of colours had been applied to their materials resulting in 28 different colours and shades being used across their communications. This was slimmed down to a more manageable 9 consisting of a range of blues, and 3 highlight colours. This resulted in a much more considered use of colour which translated into a restrained and professional aesthetic.
In their printed materials CRA use Univers, but they lacked a license for the web version and there wasn't any room in the budget to acquire it. I found a Google font with a similar aesthetic to use in it's place.
Iconography
The challenge was creating icons that would describe abstract concepts like Intellectual Property Rights and Abuse of Dominance that were clean and simple to match the aesthetic of the site.
A big help was the fact that they would never be seen in isolation, they would always have a title to support them which took a lot of the weight away from the icons themselves. With this in mind I took a key word from their description to build upon and put together some line icons that would be thematically appropriate.
Design
Companies
The Team
- Design