Thinking

The choice of a corporate colour can be a contentious one top article. Some people will say they don’t care, or that it is utterly irrelevant to them or to their clients. Until you tell them management has chosen Shocking Pink or Canary Yellow. But to a law firm, is the choice of corporate colour really that important? Surely professionals are above such frippery. Or are they?

The law is no stranger to colour-related matters. BP attempted to trademark its dashing racing green (Pantone 348C at the time) to assure its distinctiveness in petroleum products, only to lose a trademark case and be forced to re-select (it uses Pantone 355C now). Cadbury’s had a tussle with Nestlé over its purple (Pantone 2685C) when the Swiss giant opposed the trademark registration on the grounds of distinctiveness. Meanwhile mobile operator Orange (151C) kicked up a fuss when easyJet tried to trademark the very similar 021C for use with its easyMobile service. For some, colour has primary importance, if you’ll pardon the pun.

In fact, many law firms have thought very carefully about their colours. But a quick look at them on a colour wheel plotting the primary corporate colour of the Top 50 law firms in the UK reveals a remarkable clustering around certain colours and shades, and virtually nothing in other sectors of the wheel. There is a preponderance of dark shades over light. Black is the choice of seven firms, while another 12 are close-by, using some of the darkest tones available for blue, purple and green. Reds get a few look-ins, but brown and yellow are absent, with few opting for green. Birds of a feather, it seems, flock largely together. Why might this be?

It’s all in your head

Researchers have been studying the psychological effects of colour on individuals and groups for years. There is quantitative proof that there are universal emotional responses that can be mapped with certain key colours. And it’s broadly held that your geographic, cultural and socio-economic background will almost certainly influence the way you feel when you are presented with a solid object that is overwhelmingly green. Or very, very red. Still, in the complex world of hue, chroma, saturation, value, tones, tints and shades there’s much to learn. Colour is a fundamental way to differentiate from competitors, but there are no right, one-size-fits-all answers. While colours can evoke a subliminal response, if the substance doesn’t match the style, the client will quickly dissociate the two, and a disastrous performance can even blight the colour for competitors using similar livery.

Regardless of any objective thinking an agency delivers when talking to a client about colour, be it broad-based research or specific visual analysis, the conversations are always charged with extraordinary opinion, and in law firms, where everyone’s an owner (often), the debate can get heated. I’ve never worked on a brand development project where a senior stakeholder hasn’t expressed a specific, seemingly irrational, dislike of a certain colour at some point. When pressed, the root cause has ranged from an early memory of a sinister bath toy (deep green) to an almost pathological hatred of boarding-school blancmange (soft pink). These design ‘red-flags’ usually get communicated to the art team with a knowing smile.

With this in mind, how do we go about choosing a colour, or set of colours, for their visual identities? Well, the symbolic and assigned meaning of colour can help communicate an aspect of the brand’s personality. Red could communicate love, passion (and anger) whilst orange could bring a certain energy and vitality. You might use green to signal nature, abundance or new beginnings, or blue to assure calm and responsibility. Black offers mystery and elegance, whilst white helps deliver virtue and purity. The problem isn’t necessarily finding the right colour as really understanding what ideas that colour has to communicate. As you can imagine, trying to align a colour to a sustainable theme within a commercial strategy requires a great deal of conviction.

Keep it understated…or not

In general terms, law firms in the Top 50 have decided to play it safe. Black is perhaps the safest of all, but through use by many luxury brands and the extent to which it features in many cool, minimalist designs, it can have a sophisticated allure as well, particularly when paired with silver or grey for instance, and can equally turn on bold and modern when used with a lot of white and the right typography. Olswang and Clifford Chance are among the users of black in a very modern style. Blue can also be a very conservative colour, so it’s not surprising that many of the top firms favour generally dark shades of that colour, DLA Piper, Addleshaw Goddard and Ince & Co among them. Purple – with its regal and imperial overtones – clearly suits the tastes of a few others, most notably Slaughter and May and Dentons, the latter choosing a slightly zingier shade.

Bolder, brighter colours are much more unusual. Mishcon, Withers and Osborne Clarke – the latter also throwing a panther logo in for good measure – have colonised orange, while Berrymans Lace Mawer edges from the volcanic end of orange into fiery red, where Allen & Overy, Norton Rose and Wragge & Co have each staked out positions. Among the real colour mavericks of the profession are Charles Russell, out there in the lush groves of forest green; Herbert Smith, replacing its former choice of black with a smooth turquoise redolent of Pacific lagoons; and Hogan Lovells, with a cool, understated green. Shoosmiths has one of the most unusual of all corporate colours in law, a jazzy lime which enhances its zeitgeisty new website.

The key to communication

For the 30 or so firms we’ve worked with in the past five years, developing a brand that differentiates a service in one of the least differentiated markets imaginable is top of the priority list for many managing partners. It’s fuelled by new (big, branded, cash-rich) entrants into the space and some rapid consolidation and merger-mania in a race to be all things to all men, everywhere. Some firms aren’t playing the global game, and are trying to forge a name for themselves in key sectors. Clearly distinctive colours, just like clear shapes, words and sounds, can help an organisation communicate what it is trying to achieve, but it’s also important to assess whether the chosen colour could have a sustainable future in the market and, if it does, whether you can protect it.

Different colours also have different resonances in different cultures, which can be vital if you’re an international player. I once worked on a global rebrand for an NGO where the chosen primary brand colour made perfect sense in all 48 territories but one, where it had the most unfortunate political significance possible. Finding positive connotations in every market are the key.

In the discreet world of legal services graphic identity, you’ll find few brand-marks as such. Logotypes are essential but graphic devices, symbols and illustrations are exceedingly rare among the top firms. One thinks of Freshfields’ angel and Osborne Clarke’s aforementioned panther, but that’s about it. In an industry where naming conventions still favour the eponymous, anything more than a clear and stoic identification of the founders is an unnecessary distraction. We convinced a recent law-firm start-up to take a different approach, forsaking the founder name and adopt a meaningful symbol. We even managed to build in movement and animation. But it took much faith, that happily seems to have paid off. What about colour? Well, we sought out a differentiating palette, in this case a range of cool greys and metallics that supported the idea of tensile strength and toughness (the firm comprises some stellar litigators). Since then, we’ve noticed a few new entrants have appeared in the market, not to mention a couple of high profile mergers. As such, fresh identities have appeared in the legal landscape, all fighting for the attention of general counsel and business leaders.

Colour will tend to stir the passions of most people, whether they acknowledge it or not. There’s nothing worse than picking your business card out of your suit-pocket and finding yourself apologising for a corporate colour you hate, something your client is hardly likely to see as a ringing endorsement for your firm.

Understanding why your firm has selected the colour it has isn’t stupid, or some kind of marketing gimmick. It will have chosen it for a particular reason, to convey a particular message to your clients. If you find yourself apologising for it, maybe you should ask yourself whether you’re really in the right firm, and if not, find a colour you feel better reflects your own shade of being.