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Osborne Clarke: evolving the brand from the inside
From website to office refurbishment, this was about evolving the brand experience
I joined Osborne Clarke as Global Head of Brand and Communications two years into the firm’s five-year strategy.
The brand principles were already largely in place. The firm had a strong sector focus, a confident international ambition and a more modern take on what a law firm could be. So this was not a blank-page rebrand.
Making an existing brand work harder, both visually and strategically
The job was to make the brand work harder in the places people actually experienced it: the website, campaigns, client content, office space, responsible business, video and day-to-day communications.
This was not one neat rebrand with a single launch moment. It was a series of connected improvements, some strategic, some very hands-on, and a lot of it involved fixing things while they were already live.
That is often the reality inside a fast-moving Professional Services firm. You inherit a strategy, a website, a visual identity, partner expectations and a marketing team already under pressure.
The work is to make it sharper, more useful and more consistent without losing momentum. That was the real challenge at Osborne Clarke, and the part of the role I enjoyed most.
Website and content strategy: fixing the plane while flying it
A new global website was launching just as I arrived in 2016. It should have been a major step forward, with a key objective to improve traffic from the international offices, but unfortunately the thinking behind it was lacking.
The structure and UX were not ideal, and the content strategy needed work. Because the site was already live, we had to improve it section by section, which was challenging but ultimately successful.
The first area I changed was the insights section. This was where much of the firm’s intellectual capital lived, so it needed to work much harder. I wanted it to feel more journalistic and topical – more like a broadcast news site. Clients had to be able to find useful thinking quickly, and the site had to do a better job of showing what Osborne Clarke was known for.
I led a redevelopment programme for the live website, improving UX, multilingual consistency, SEO and the way the brand showed up across sectors and regions, section by section.
Over time, the site became a much more effective BD and marketing platform. The performance results were also very strong: site visits increased from 100k to 1.1m in the first year, and multilingual engagement rose by 22%.
Visual identity: cleaning up the logo and giving the brand more range
When I joined, the visual identity relied almost entirely on bespoke illustrations. It gave OC a recognisable style, but it had also become limiting.
For thought leadership and campaigns, we needed more range and more connection to the real world of clients, sectors and business issues.
There was no budget for a full photography shoot, and the content requirements were too broad for that to be practical anyway. So I introduced a more ownable approach to stock photography.
The idea was simple: use images with an orange element, tone or glow, or treat them in a way that made them feel more distinctly OC. It gave us more flexibility without making the brand feel generic.
I also simplified the OC logo, removing the cat and full name from inside the ‘O’ of the graphic. The older mark lost clarity at small scale, especially on the website and as a favicon. The cleaner version worked much better digitally and is still the direction the firm uses today.
Campaigns and thought leadership: making complex change easier to discuss
A lot of the work at Osborne Clarke was about helping clients make sense of complex legal and commercial change.
Brexit Lens was a good example. We created a printed brochure designed as a fold-out ‘meeting map’, giving fee earners a practical way to guide clients through the issues Brexit could create for their business.
It was designed to be used in conversation, not just read and put away. Something partners could open out on a table and use to structure a client discussion.
I also managed the GDPR campaign, which was huge for the legal sector at the time. Before implementation, the work focused on helping clients prepare through the 100-day countdown. Once GDPR came in, the focus shifted to what the regulation meant in practice across different sectors, business models and operational issues.
Other thought leadership campaigns included the Digital Business sector report and Future of Work. Future of Work was particularly interesting because we were looking at automation, digital services, new roles, training, skills and workplace culture in 2017, long before Covid changed working patterns so dramatically and before the current AI debate took hold.
We interviewed HR directors and senior in-house lawyers at key clients to understand how they thought work was likely to change. It was exactly the sort of thought leadership law firms should do more of: not just comment on the law, but help clients understand the wider commercial and human shift around it.
OC TV: in-house studios: making video easier, faster and better
I also built in-house recording studios in both the London and Bristol offices to support the creation of video content for the firm’s digital channels.
We bought professional filming and editing equipment and brought in ex-BBC specialists to train the team and advise on the set-up, lighting, sound and editing.
In Bristol, we had two set-ups: one for panel discussions and one for direct-to-camera filming. In London, I had a small studio built into the office refurbishment. It was compact, but flexible enough to accommodate both direct-to-camera filming and small panel discussions.
The business case was straightforward. External filming days were expensive and difficult to coordinate, especially when partner availability could change at the last minute. The studio investment was around £50k, while an external filming day could cost around £3k, so the set-up paid for itself quickly and gave the firm far more control over speed, quality and scheduling.
Brand experience: bringing the brand into the London office
The London office refurbishment was another important part of the work.
This was about the brand experience for clients and staff, not just the look of the space. We wanted the office to support highly flexible and collaborative working. This was in 2019, before working from home was common in London-based law firms, but OC wanted to support a more agile way of working.
The design brought in unallocated desks, and not even the CEO had a private office. Internal meeting rooms were bookable online, and a digital system with display panels outside each room allowed for on-the-spot booking and availability checks. Multiple collaboration spaces were also installed across the office to support different working needs, from open lounges to enclosed booths.
To reflect the agile culture and technology sector focus of the firm, we commissioned and acquired a collection of digital-inspired and technology-themed artworks from both up-and-coming and established artists who creatively used, or were inspired by, technology.
OC for Good: giving responsible business a defined sub brand
I developed the name and strategy for OC for Good.
The firm was already doing a lot in this space, but the activity needed a clearer frame. It needed to bring together responsible business, people, community and environmental work in a way that felt practical, not vague or worthy.
OC for Good gave it a simple home and a more memorable organising idea. It made the work easier to explain externally, and easier for people inside the firm to recognise as part of the same story.