Creating the Graphic Grid

To help unify the brand message delivered by any marketing element we needed a graphical grid that would serve as the design foundation for everything we would create.

As a beginning we determined that our grid should allow for large open spaces between page elements (white space). To a point I believe increased white space equals more comprehensible information.

We also determined that our grid should be usable across everything and anything we created. Not just collateral, but letterhead, envelopes, cards, notes, web, PowerPoint's, etc.

As an example, look at a web page, strip away all content except logo and complimentary information and you are left with a close match to our letterhead. Strip away everything but logo and title area and you have a close match to our cards. To do this we had to make choices about what information/elements went where, and, we had to make layout rules for each grid section. With limited exceptions we use flush-left in all grid sections, and have assigned fonts, weights, colors, content, etc.

All graphical elements must be "living" images; Real people and object photography. Charts and graphs have templates as well controlling the color pallet, callouts, line weights and information flow. Everything conforms to the base grid.

Since we were creating a grid standard that has to communicate our message whenever it was used we also had to consider how it look in two years and in ten.... Like a classic Brooks Bros. suit, would it be wearable down the road as the firm, information, and people changed? For this reason we stuck with simple layout choices, tailored to us of course, and avoided any bling or flair ("new this year" stuff).

In the end we did arrive at a very flexible, unique, wide open, classical grid and so far it is performing quite well. What it will generate is a family of marketing elements that are familiar and friendly to our audience.
Technorati Tags: Legal Marketing, Professional Services Marketing, Marketing, Business Development, Sales

Tag, I'm It

I got tagged on Thom Singer's Some Assembly Required blog to respond to the below questions. He had been tagged by Larry Bodine's Professional Marketing Blog . Now it is my turn. Acutally, I really enjoyed working down the list and recording my choices. If you were tagged by me... have fun and pass it along.

Four Jobs I've had:

1. CMO
2. Drill Instructor, USMC
3. Graphic Artist
4. Baseball Umpire, NCAA

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. Meet Joe Black
2. Lord of the Rings, Tale of Two Towers
3. Gladiator
4. For the Love of the Game

Four TV shows I love to watch:

1. This Old House
2. Food Network cooking shows
3. Wind Tunnel
4. Comedy Central Presents

Four places I've been on vacation:

1. Kanektok River, Alaska
2. Deschutes River, Oregon
3. Decatur, IL
4. Las Vegas

Four tunes that play through my head:

1. Speed of Sound; Cold Play
2. Find the Cost of Freedom; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
3. Bamboo; Joe Satriani
4. Possession; Sarah McLachlan

Four favorite dishes:

1. Indian Curry (family recipe)
2. Chicken/broccoli casserole
3. Oyster shooters
4. Baked potato w/ butter, sour cream, chives

Four websites I visit daily:

1. Google News
2. Slashdot
3. Simply Recipes
4. Wired News

Four books I really love:

1. The Bible
2. Selling the Invisible; Harvey Mackay
3. The Short History of Nearly Everything; Bill Bryson
4. Bass Pro Shop’s Master Catalog (is that a book?)

Four places I'd rather be:

1. Standing in a river with fly rod in hand
2. Sailing with my father
3. Getting a facial
4. Right here, right now

Four bloggers I'm tagging:

1. Gerry Riskin
2. David Swanner
3. John Zagula
4. Andy Rutledge

Have A Great Day.

New Photos and New Personalities

There is a 25 year old woman attorney in my firm that came in front of the camera today (We did our second full day of headshot and editorial photography at the firm with several attorneys coming under the gaze of the camera lens). With children older than this particular attorney I was struck by her youth, and I wondered how someone so young could be believable when she says, "I am a litigator for Rutan & Tucker." My job today was to take a picture that would make her statement credible.

We took a lot of pictures using my favorite revealer of personality Raffi Alexander. We took pictures of the attorneys leaning against walls; arms crossed and serious; hands on hips and cocky; smiling; scowling; laughing; relaxing; sitting; thinking; talking; and looking like real people.... With personalities.

I know I talk a lot about photos and headshots on this blawg, but in the bigger picture, the graphic elements of what represents a firm is a huge part of the marketing process.

Again today I saw "people", not "lawyers" in the camera; The perfect image to put in front of prospects and clients. Character and personality is exactly what I want the world to see. Since clients are landed and kept on personal relationships it feels important that personality is revealed as soon as possible.

The 25 year old litigator that looks so young.... We now have pictures of a very determined, totally serious attorney looking quite capable and qualified. If you want to see that for yourself wait a few weeks. I'll share the ad.

I'm Being Watched...

Being a blawger and an active CMO at a law firm has its unsettling moments. Today I stopped by a partner's office to discuss client retention strategies and saw my blawg on his screen. First thought, "Uh-oh!"... Immediately followed by thinking, "Cool!"

Thinking about this further; Of course people at my firm read MarketingCatalyst from time to time. Some may even read it regularly. And that is good in a lot of ways. To name a few:

• Being the newest mind contributing daily to firm strategies the availability of my thinking process and thoughts on law firm marketing can help build greater familiarity faster.
• It will stimulate their thinking on marketing topics, maybe help to crystallize opinion, and promote new discussion.
• It will lead them to other law firm marketing blogs and the thinking of others on this specific topic.
• It will demonstrate my passion for my profession and the legal industry.

Since I like what I do and obviously like writing about what I know and what I learn I do hope that my blawg becomes an interactive opportunity for me with the members of my firm.

Grinder's and Drone's; Rainmaking is Not the Only Thing

Is it realistic or reasonable to expect that every lawyer in a law firm is a rainmaker? Some would argue, yes. It has even been suggested that personality tests should be conducted prior to hiring and lawyers that test as "non-rainmakers" should always be passed over... Hmmm.

For the good of the client and the sustainability of the firm; I would argue; No.

Without delving into multiple psychological studies I believe we can agree that the personality characteristics of rainmakers are excellent for bringing business through the door and are not always the best at keeping the work.

In the same way corporations divide the task of selling from the task of customer service. One part of an organization has to hire and equip people to sell, and another has to focus on keeping what is secured. If every lawyer in a firm has the psychological profile of a salesperson, who will take care of the clients after they are sold?

It has been my experience that the number of rainmakers in a firm usually equal the need to develop clients (most of the time but not always).

What a firm DOES need, in addition to rainmaker personalities, is lawyers that can do the work. Lawyers that are happy as (in the words of another author) "grinders and drones." Production is definitely as important as any part of the client development and retention process.

A successful firm is defined by the ability to bring in new business AND the capability to sustain the work.
Technorati Tags: Legal Marketing, Professional Services Marketing, Marketing, Business Development, Sales

What's in a Font?

Selecting a font set representative of the firm essence was an incredibly difficult part of creating the brand package. How many fonts are out there anyway. 10,000? 1,000,000? Probably more.
I just needed two. A serif and a sans-serif. The serif would be my title/headline font and the sans was for general text. Typically headline fonts are sans and text are serif.... You know, the whole thing about serif fonts being more readable in text sizes. But I wanted to turn things over a bit to propogate being different.

Serif: The font we chose is Garamond. It has a very classical look and feel; Like the type in classical leatherbound books and old documents, yet it has a modern feeling and clean line in its swoops and accents. And definitely not Times New Roman (the choice dejure of most law firms). As a headline font it bolds up very nicely without loosing detail or ornamentation.

Sans-serif: We went with Helvetica, the Swedish grandfather of all Macintosh sans-serif fonts. As the font most associated with Mac's, and generally not available on PC's (PC's use the Microsoft created and unauthorized Helvetica clone, Arial) it has an open and readable flow that adapts well to most text situations. And because of its very modern feel was the perfect font to contrast Garamond.

Helvetica, as a text font will also provide me with the ability to monitor presentations and papers produced internally. Because Helvetica is only installed on marketing department PC's I will be able to immediately identify papers and presentations that are being prepared or distributed by mustang attorneys or staff.

Both fonts work well in large and tight spaces..... Our ad campaign uses a wide open, large volumes of white space grid while our web site uses a tighter page grid to maximize space without forcing a user to scroll.

Since my first computer (purchased in 1984) I have been a devotee of fonts as graphical expression. Like pictures a font can make or break a message. It communicates feeling and evokes emotion. Selecting the right font set for a brand is as complex as picking the right color.... Maybe even tougher because differences are so tiny from one to the next.
Technorati Tags: Legal Marketing, Professional Services Marketing, Marketing, Business Development, Sales

Selecting a Color for the Brand of the Firm

When we started the branding process I had recently interviewed most of the partners at the firm. One of the questions I asked was, "What is your favorite color?" The goal of the question, beyond understanding personalities, was to find a color that my partners would be warm towards. That color turned out to be 'blue'. DUH! What is the single most popular color for most North Americans? Yup... Blue.

Then, my rep from Fine Arts came bearing samples of letterheads they'd created for a large block of their clients. More than 70% of this large sampling of law firms used blue (and gray) as their primary color. WOW! Tiny little bells were ringing like crazy in my head. In that moment I knew I could never accept blue.

My art director and brand guru, Jim Hughes, suggested a traditional power color. Red. I liked it but also knew that in the many shades and hues of red there are many that would be incredibly wrong. We did actually look at several combinations of other primaries in the spectrum but kept coming back to red. Considering the amount of time we spent discovering the essence of the firm, red just felt right.

Jim and his team created a collection of layouts using the agreed upon logo, and with each interation he used several hue variations of red. Each time we came closer to understanding and agreeing upon which hue captured our message.

The red needed to be strong without being overpowering. It had to communicate seriousness without being demanding. It had to feel like a timeless color; Not a color born from a modern trend. And, it had to be just edgy enough that my partners liked the statement it made without fear of being too boastful. Let's face it, red can be pretty loud.

On the final day of signing off on the color as I listened to partners comment on the letterhead comp's the one word that kept coming up was, "confident". To them (and to me) the final color projected confidence. Not too loud, not too dull... it somehow managed to stradle the middle ground of being powerful but without ego.

Choosing red in a firm with such a long legacy was a HUGE risk for the firm.... But I believe it is the PERFECT color for this group.

Finding the right color for a firm is not easy. Color communicates entire messages even when it has no form or design... making a choice is that much more important... a choice that does not come along too often.
Technorati Tags: Legal Marketing, Professional Services Marketing, Marketing, Business Development, Sales