The Client
Headquartered in Stansted Essex, Kain Knight is the biggest independent team of cost lawyers in the UK, specialising in the handling of complex, large scale costs disputes in the commercial, insurance and serious injury spheres.
The Brief
In recent times the client has expanded both the scope and scale of its business and wanted to refresh its branding and website to reflect the increased coverage and diversity of services offered. In addition, it was an opportunity to mark the occasion of Kain Knight’s 45th anniversary.
The scale of the operation and speed of its growth also necessitated an ongoing recruitment drive for experienced cost lawyers, and the website needed to be updated to appeal to potential partners and employees as well as existing clients.
On a design note, the client was insistent on a radical departure from the conventional visual clichés – pinstriped executives shaking hands etc – typical of so many legal and financial websites.
The Proposal
From the outset, we saw that clear, easy to follow navigation and uncomplicated update ability would be of first importance in the design of the website. Our first proposal was to have a double-headed home page that would provide separate links to the ‘Our Services’ and ‘Join Us’ sections of the site so that visitors could embark on the appropriate user journey. We also recommended the incorporation of WordPress to allow the client to edit the content as needed, of particular importance in the ‘Our People’ section.
As to the visual content of the website we considered using still lifes or conceptual images alongside purely graphic, pictogram style icons. The latter offered a simple, distinctive yet strongly thematic approach which emerged as the client’s favourite.
The logo, house colours and corporate design elements were also rolled out across the website and associated marketing collateral (including social media and email graphics and the company’s recruitment brochure (including a digital flip page version featured on the website).
To give ongoing service support the agency hosts the website and has trained Kain Knight staff in the use of WordPress.
The Result
The success of the project is perhaps best expressed by the client’s own comments: “For our 45th anniversary we instructed Simpsons to refresh our website and branding. Richard and Alex were a dream to work with. They took the time to understand our objectives and helped and guided us to shape the look and feel of the new website. Moreover, we set an ambitious goal for delivery and they smashed it!” – Matthew Kain, Chief Executive Officer, Kain Knight Ltd.
If you are looking to do something similar with your website, contact us today.