Rosenberg & Calvin

A personal approach to personal injury litigation

Rosenberg & Calvin is a personal injury law firm based in Jacksonville, Florida. I worked with the law firm over the course of the summer to redesign their existing website and create a compelling brand for the firm. I designed the company’s logo, website, and provided photography, editing, and copy writing services for the law firm.

View the Site in Development

Project Scope

Logo Design
Web Design and Development
Copy writing
Photography

Project Timeline

2018

PROCESS

Current Site Audit

I began by conducting an audit of the firm’s current website to identify the essential areas of the site and any weak areas I could improve. There were quite a few problems with the firm’s current site. Most notably, the overall visual design of the site looked outdated and the homepage is confusing to navigate.

The site also had many issues with its copy. Several pages repeated entire paragraphs of text, and other pages used lawyerly terms that were not very accessible or welcoming to the average user. I spent a good amount of time simply reading through the site, conferring with the partners, and determining the best way to consolidate text and highlight the most essential and helpful information.

Competitive Audit

A large portion of this initial exploration consisted of researching successful attorney websites. The core principles of web design are important regardless of industry, but I wanted to see how this firm’s competitors uniquely position themselves. For the sake of privacy, I will not list the exact competitors I observed. I did, however, notice patterns across the more successful competitor websites. The best attorney websites:

•   Had a strong brand and personality
•   Were optimized for mobile use
•   Used clear headings and CTA’s to guide the user
•   Employed a more modern, clean-looking design
•   Featured crisp, professional photography

The time I devoted to the current site audit and competitor research was crucial to the remainder of my design process. I believe that design should be informed by research, and always want to make sure I am solving problems when I design. At this point in my design process, I formulated three main goals.

First and foremost, I needed to give the law firm a strong, professional brand. This includes a logo, tagline, value proposition, and voice. These elements would inform the look and feel of the site. Second, I needed to simplify the website’s information architecture and improve visual hierarchy to help users better find the information they need. Better user experience also means more conversions for the law firm. Finally, I wanted to improve the overall SEO of the site by following best technical practices, like using optimized images, proper heading tags, alt text, and other accessibility features.

BRAND DESIGN

Initial Sketches + Iterations

I always begin my logo design process with a discussion with the clients about their business’s core values and personality. One line that kept coming up from Rosenberg & Calvin was, “a personal approach to personal injury litigation.” I decided to use this line as the firm’s tagline, and it inspired the voice of the brand.

Final Design

The final design is based off of direction two. The partners wanted a clean, crisp logo that was professional, but modern. We decided to add the ampersand between Rosenberg and Calvin because the name confused some people, who thought they were one person, rather than law partners.

PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY

An important part of this website redesign was taking high-quality photographs of the partners and staff at Rosenberg & Calvin. Below are a few select shots from the photo shoot. You can view more photos here.

WEBSITE DESIGN

Information Architecture

I spent time studying the site’s current structure and user flows, and designed a simplified structure with fewer menu items so users can quickly find the information they need. The original site had nine menu items, and I compressed the information into four.

Final Design

Below is a few select screens from the newly developed website. The new site features a clean, consistent brand, professional photography, and a voice that is welcoming to potential clients. The site is designed to clearly convey information to the user and encourage potential clients to call the law firm for more information.