An empty cup How I learned to become a failure Designisnowhere The Junior & The Art Director A Case for Space Crappy club for jerks Boxed In Zero for hire HiiDef Inc. Identity A New Page (& Year) Portfolio Building Ignorance Avoidance Dynamic Columns Flat Shadows Upright Shadows The real Jim Shady Design with a point of view TweetDeck icons Get creative, you hack MacUser Magazine Expression Engine: Quick & dirty Back in business Swiss for WordPress Stepping into web design Navigation spacing in Photoshop .NET mag fame Design by numbers Proper propaganda Stats: One month in Pimped! The ever-watchful subconscious Designing for the web: 5 things I love & hate Ripped! Fun with a tablet Incestuous design A New Beginning Logo marathon Making it real What’s in a name? Tippin’ the Balance
This is the story of how one idea can inform a whole campaign and visual identity.
—Published 13 October, 2008
Research One are a legal research company with a very different business model. Rather than a traditional bricks and mortar setup, they conduct legal research for lawyers via a decentralised outsourced network of researchers spread across the globe.
I was lucky enough to become involved with Research One still in the early stages of the company’s development. While they had a logo and a colour palette and a lot of ideas, they were still trying to uncover their visual identity. It might seem pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but I’d argue there really is a looking-glass-self thing happening when it comes to businesses starting out. We certainly believe things more when we can see them. How they felt about themselves had a big impact not only on how the outside world perceived them, but how they ran and grew the business.
Challenge
Research One were after a whole gamut of marketing material to take that ‘next step’. The founders of the company had their eyes set on a number of grants and awards to help raise their profile, but couldn’t sell the company in their presentations without a clear visual identity to compliment their unique business model.
Solution
“In business, the saying ‘Image is everything’ is true. Through ads, fonts, logos, colours, photos, graphics, and more — Rob has undoubtedly helped us to gain the confidence of our clients, has impressed the judges of our many grants and awards, and has contributed to our overall business success.”
Troy Simpson
Co-Founder, Research One
Sometimes the most obvious answers are the right ones. Research One’s business is research. And the first thing most people think of when they think of research is books. The founders would explain how in legal research, finding the right passage from the right book can sometimes make or break an argument.
So we made a connection between this process, the logo and colour scheme and came up with a simple visual: a row of books without colour and one orange book amongst them.
This idea opened up a game to be played within the boundaries we’d now drawn up. No matter the medium or applications, following this formula gave us something inherently ‘Research One’.
Results
Well firstly, Research One got their corporate ‘swagger’. Of course they were always believers, but having a look that did their business justice helped them sell it to others and let the reality crystalise that bit quicker.
Not long after we developed the visual identity and marketing material to go with it, Research One picked up a number of grants and awards including the ACT Knowledge Fund Commercial Grant and the prestigious Australian Business of the Year in the Micro-Business category. Rock on.
I borrowed so many books from the library to shoot this series.
Yep, that’s my arm. That camera’s on timer at this point. :)
Flash animation used on their homepage.
Online ad.