The OC has made a bid to squeeze the ’sheds and others out of the ‘firm of the future’ slot on the legal marketing spectrum. Not only have they adopted a new futuristic illustration style on their web site, but they’ve also updated their logo to one that makes them look rather more sleek and aggressive.
Up until recently, the OC logo looked like this. Not any more.
Now they’ve dropped the serif typeface to make the brand more contemporary, had the logo drawn properly and thus made it less of a passive symbol and more an emblem of active engagement. It’s also addressing the viewer in a rather more dynamic manner than before, when it looked like it was skulking away, upset because the nasty big lion from down the road wouldn’t share his wildebeest.
They’ve also spent money getting an illustrator to draw a sort-of global landscape, which has been done in ultra-designy minimalist terms, not unlike something you’d expect to see on a Transport For London poster, or perhaps an episode from 1960’s Flintstone’s-in-reverse toon The Jetsons.
But most intriguingly of all, the whole re-design process seems to have turned OC into a bunch of braces-wearing, red-spectacle-sporting advertising Tristrams. Ever read any quite as design-luvvie as this on a law firm’s web site? No – thought not.
That is the first time I’ve seen a colophon used by a law firm. Wired magazine uses colophons to indicate what influences went into each issue, often including foodstuffs and alcohol.
I’m wondering quite what OC’s designers were on when they did this. I kind of love it, but then I love Japanese ‘anime’, and most of my mates not only think I’m crazy but make me watch it on my own.
OC’s little international-cityscape reminds me VERY much of ‘Townville’, the city where the Powerpuff Girls ‘live’.
OK, I’ll shut up now…