For our Clients

Snell & Wilmer—a powerhouse firm driven by an unparalleled commitment to their clients—approached us with a challenge. Despite their strong industry reputation and dominant footprint across the West, their previous brand experience was limiting and ineffective. Messaging felt heavy and wordy, and failed to capture the firm’s relevance and impact. Visuals were inconsistent resulting in marketing materials that appeared disconnected. The firm sought an experience upgrade—one that would weave together the essence of its brand with a visually compelling new look that could seamlessly evolve into its upcoming website redesign. They approached Contrast to help bolster the firm’s enduring legacy and position it for long-term branding success.

A simple yet strong visual identity.

We wanted the firm's visual identity to project strength, simplicity, and confidence. This is achieved through the use of powerful imagery and oversized typographic treatments that effectively tell the firm's story. Landscape photography helps convey a sense of place, ensuring that the brand's narrative is visually compelling and relatable. Overall, the visual identity is versatile, easily scaling across various materials while maintaining a cohesive look and feel. Key elements include strong, confident headlines, geometric design constructs, and a warm, unique, and consistent color palette.

A strong set of values.

Snell & Wilmer doesn’t chase bright, shiny objects; they focus on enduring relationships, not transactions. They strongly believed in their firm's credo and wanted it reflected more thoughtfully throughout their brand experience. We took their values—a deep commitment to the firm, its clients, and the community—and led with them from a messaging perspective. Far more than platitudes, we wanted these values to drive firm communications, marketing messaging, and thought leadership content. We aimed to emphasize the firm’s client focus and priorities, ensuring that this messaging was reinforced across multiple touchpoints.

Not a look. A feel.

We didn’t just want to create a look for this firm; we wanted the brand to have a warm, friendly, and approachable feel that matched the personalities of the attorneys behind it. Drawing inspiration from the stunning tapestries and landscapes of the West, we aimed for the brand identity to evoke a distinct sense of place. A unique serif typeface adds personality, and the color palette stems from thoughtful design inspiration. The result is a confident, sophisticated aesthetic that scales effortlessly from website heroes to digital recruiting materials. Furthermore, accessibility was a crucial consideration in the design, ensuring that the visual identity remains inclusive and engaging for all users.

A system designed to scale.

We aimed to create a simple design aesthetic that could scale across all of the firm's marketing communications, providing the marketing teams with a wide range of options for design compositions. To achieve this, we developed a robust underlying grid system that offers both structure and flexibility, enabling a variety of design layouts and compositions for both print and digital touchpoints. Hairline visual rule elements were incorporated to add underlying structure and cohesion, while typography was featured as a distinct design element. All visual systems were designed to facilitate the seamless integration of text and various design elements. The resulting look is clean and editorial, ensuring clear communication and consistency in firm messaging.