Ask anyone who hasn’t been to describe Mishcon de Reya’s offices. They’d probably envision velvet-lined hat-stands upon which Princesses can safely rest their tiaras. Maybe a nice butler with a moustache and a good line in dry sherry. And, somewhere in the distance, perhaps the soft riffs of Anthony Julius jamming with a rock star in a sound-proofed drawing room.
Or now – perhaps not. Mishcon has just launched its new web site, and it’s the very incarnation of restrained classiness.
Perhaps you’d expect no less from the BD Director Elliot Moss, what with his background in broadcasting and top-level advertising. (Oh, and The Untouchables.) The home page – above – is an exercise in no-nonsense client-centricity. How can we help you? it asks, preferring to introduce itself with dialogue rather than brashly shoving its creds down your throat. The logotype remains one of the most stylish in the business, and there’s something wonderfully boutique-y about the orange that manages to be confident and contemporary at the same time. Hue-wise, it’s certainly a long way from the don’t-take-offence corporate blue used by most law firms.
So it’s sure of itself. It’s understated. It’s different.
A couple of niggles, though. The secondary navigation bar on the content pages seems – well, sort of in the wrong place. And there’s something counter-cultural about the block capitals of the sub-headings. FIRM NEWS, one of them shouts, slightly blarey and all-too resonant of Chris Morris’s The Day Today.
The web guy sitting opposite me thinks the ‘News Calendar’ is a little disingenuous. (’Why would I want to know when the news is released, rather than what it is?’) And there’s no doubt that some of those text inserts on the orange blocks read a bit strangely. This from the Trainee Recruitment page: ‘Wanted: people who see things the way we do. Differently.’ A gauche bit of copy almost as unsupportable as anything written by David Irving.
On the day I’m writing this there are communication problems in Holborn. Mischcon have already put a flash on the news page stating they’re aware of the problem and ‘it should be resolved within the hour’. Nicely done, but then that’s what you can do when your site is small and manageable – change it at short notice with genuine client requirements in mind.
