12 October 16 Finding the balance with Fletcher Clarendon.

The legal world is often linked with balance. For our recent project with Fletcher Clarendon, it was more about finding the ‘right’ balance: creating a unique site to help a progressive firm stand out in a relatively conservative wider industry.

The team from Fletcher Clarendon came to us with a challenge. They wanted to stand out, reflect key shifts in their workplace, engage existing audiences and become more attractive for new ones.

They wanted to convey their uniqueness as a law firm. At the same time though, they wanted to uphold their established reputation and the trust and value within it.

Over the course of a website redevelopment, we worked together to better showcase Fletcher Clarendon’s broad set of capabilities. We set out to create something that feels fresh, stylish and offers a charismatic modern aesthetic – but that still speaks to the clout of highly specialised and established legal practitioners.

Ironically, the idea of duality seemed to nail it in one. In both content and design, we created a feeling of versatile flexibility.

Boutique in size, but big on experience, Fletcher Clarendon is capable of bringing clients the best of both worlds.

Hence the decision to incorporate a split-screen designed homepage with cyclical positioning statements. The dual central lines signify Fletcher Clarendon as the perfect middle ground, while the dual-pronged copy treatments – ‘personal and professional’, offering ‘broad experience and specific expertise’ – position the firm as being capable of servicing both ends of the spectrum.

The homepage’s split-screened design and copy treatment.

We designed and built a site that is personal and welcoming for users, but that still showcases experience and expertise. To establish a tangible sense of the team at Fletcher Clarendon, staff profiles feature bold photography with a clean and understated aesthetic. We collaborated with photographers to art-direct a style that is both warm and polished.

Throughout the development process, we straddled modern design and classic style. The site is optimised for full screen experience, using viewport width to enable variable type size and font scaling. The full screen navigation design departs from the general conventions of legal websites, while drop-cap typography formatting adds that subtle element of classical flair for the team biographies.

The menu tab slides out to reveal full screen navigation.

Finally, the site had to hit that perfect midpoint between looking awesome and being easy to use. Fletcher Clarendon’s signature cobalt blue is weaved throughout the interaction elements in various hover states. The vibrant colour also highlights simple navigation mechanisms and creates prominence for key calls to action.

Check out the site to view the full range of features and get more of a feel for Fletcher Clarendon!