Oyen Wiggs

An innovative brand for an innovative firm

The firm

Oyen Wiggs is a leading British Columbia-based firm specializing in intellectual property law. It is recognized as having first-rate patent lawyers with advanced training in scientific and technical fields.

The challenge

The lawyers of Oyen Wiggs are not just legal experts, they’re scientists and engineers, with expertise ranging from software to biotech. Their advanced training in technical disciplines allows them to better understand and protect their clients’ innovations. The trouble was, this impressive expertise was hidden behind a dull façade. The previous Oyen Wiggs brand was consistent but stagnate, and their previous website was little more than text on a screen. This wasn’t who they were: a brilliant bunch of legal and scientific minds. They needed a refresh of their image— logo, website, advertising, the whole gamut— to better reflect that unique spirit. We are honoured that patentable.com won First Place at the 2018 LMA Your Honor Awards for Law Firm Website Design and Development.

The work

Branding/Identity

DISCOVERY & VERBAL BRAND

Before we began sketching out cool logos or coding a new website, we took the time to discover who Oyen Wiggs is as a firm and as a team. It quickly became apparent that the lawyers of Oyen Wiggs are passionate about innovation, and that they truly care about the success of their clients and their clients’ inventions. Their greatest aspiration? To assist innovators, scientists, and entrepreneurs in their work. We developed key messaging and strategic positioning which captured these values. Taglines emerged including “Protecting Innovation.”

VISUAL BRAND

Oyen Wiggs Green & Mutala LLP needed to shed its old brand and take on a look that reflected the ingenuity of its lawyers and clients. Our discovery sessions with the firm lead to a decision to shorten the name to the stronger, and more familiar “Oyen Wiggs.” Next up was the logo and brand colours. This immediately raised a question: how exactly does one convey innovation?

Our lead designer had the answer:
“We chose a bright blue palette for its fresh, optimistic feel. And we designed the logo to capture the circular elements recurring in the letters of Oyen Wiggs and in science itself: oxygen atoms, tree rings, and the lens of microscopes. The letters’ subtle winged-details pay homage to the wonder of flight— from Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of human-powered gliders to the flying cars of the future.”

This visual aesthetic would go on to inform all our work, from the design of the Oyen Wiggs website to their new lawyer photos and business cards.

COMMUNICATIONS TOOLS & COLLATERAL

More than just a logo, the Oyen Wiggs brand is a system of visual elements that communicates the firm’s essential values. To ensure consistent quality, we developed a Brand Guide. This document served as a blueprint as we set about designing a series of print materials for Oyen Wiggs, including business cards and letterhead. We made sure that this new brand mapped onto digital, as we created a firm PowerPoint template, e-newsletter template, e-signature, and more. Oyen Wiggs’ bold new logo looked just as good on a sign, and on a water bottle (and should they ever decide to put their logo on the side of a spaceship, we’re sure that it’ll look right at home.) 

Web Design & Development

SCOPE & PRE-PRODUCTION

Oyen Wiggs needed a website that was every bit as inventive as their clients. We performed some digital archeology, digging up the data of their previous website, and studying the behaviour of the site’s users. Which pages did they visit, which were ignored, and why? Our analysis allowed us to identify key user requirements. These insights, combined with Oyen Wiggs business development goals, informed the design of Information Architecture (IA) and the Interface Design Wireframes (IDW). This new site would be accessible and appealing, and all about helping the client.

WEBSITE DESIGN & PLANNING

Wireframes secured, it was time to begin designing. We integrated the new branding, the new logo, and all that optimistic blue colouring. The lawyers of Oyen Wiggs were due for some smart new photos, so we set up a session with our talented photographer, editing the pictures to highlight tones of subtle blue and cyan. But it wasn’t all about the flash; Oyen Wiggs needed a site that would make it easy for innovators to access their intellectual property expertise. We helped them to integrate Patent and Trademark primers, with more client resources to come. We made sure to design the site for optimal performance on every platform: desktop, mobile, and tablet. 

CUSTOM CODE & SITE BUILD

It would be a shame if Oyen Wiggs’ key messages were lost in all that new functionality. To that end, we designed three easy-to-use paths, Legal Services, Technical Expertise, and Industries, because we realized that clients may be coming from different fields and choose to navigate the site in different ways. This ensured that every visitor could find the expertise they needed with the fewest number of clicks. Our fSquared Marketing developers fine-tuned the lawyer search and practice areas, to create a seamless user-experience.

Video Creation

How do you brand an idea? With a striking video right on the homepage. The firm logo floats across images of scientists and inventors at their work. Each microsecond of footage was carefully chosen and edited by us to tell an impactful story: Oyen Wiggs is “Protecting Innovation”.

Lawyer Photography

Bright, bold portraits for a brilliant team. We positioned the Oyen Wiggs lawyers against the Vancouver skyline and edited with care, bumping up the blues to create pictures that reinforce the brand.

Responsive Design

We built a site that looks good on any screen so that when a busy entrepreneur checks out patentable.com on their smartphone the experience is every bit as good as a desktop. Responsive design ensures that the website adapts automatically to any device, screen size, and browser.

PDF Printing

Choosing Oyen Wiggs just got easier. We created elegant on-the-fly PDF versions of their lawyer bios so that their lawyers are never without client-ready marketing materials. This makes it easier to pitch a client or respond to a proposal, and it even makes it more likely for a referral source to follow through with a valuable connection.

Value Added Services

Curated photography for web

Dynamic photography for the ever-changing world of tech. We carefully curated high quality photography, matching every industry, legal service, and area of technical expertise with engaging images. Each image was carefully edited to elevate the colours of the new brand. The legal services section combined photography with illustration to create a consistent, but still engaging, header image.

Project Management

At fSquared Marketing, we pride ourselves on our excellent project management. We have extensive experience developing marketing programs, websites, and e-commerce platforms. Our customized project management and communication tools allowed us to ensure that Oyen Wiggs new brand and website launched on track and on budget.

I'd like to find out more Contact Us