Five Tips for the Best

5 TIPS for the BEST LAW FIRM LOGO

by Andrew Cabasso

What does your law firm logo suggest to your potential clients?

You only have one chance to make a first impression. Upon meeting a new or prospective client and exchanging business cards, the client will get an impression of your firm based on the law firm logo alone.

So, what does your logo say about your firm?

Your law firm logo represents your law firm to the outside world. Every seemingly insignificant aspect of it makes an impression on the client. Font. Color scheme. Name arrangement. Text size. Spacing. Inclusion of a scale or gavel image.

Looking at your business card and firm logo, your client gets an impression. Your client forms an idea in his or her head of what your firm stands for. Is your logo modern or traditional? Does it make you look frugal and indifferent, like you made the logo yourself in Microsoft Word, or does it look like you value your reputation and appearance, and had a professional designer create the logo?

Before approaching a logo designer or creating the logo yourself, there are some very important steps you can take to get a clear picture of what the logo should entail and how it should represent your law firm.

 Look at Your Competitors

You don’t want your law firm to look like the other law firms in your practice area and location, lest your firm be unmemorable to the client. The last thing you want to do is confuse the client with what sets your firm apart from everyone else. See what you like about their logos. Make notes. Try and gauge how their logos make you perceive their law firms. Do their logos make the firms appear professional or do they seem like the firms are unremarkable? Think about what you like and don’t like about these firm logos when deciding on how your own logo is going to look.

 Modern or Traditional? Decide on a Theme

Do you want your logo to be modern or traditional?

These are the two main theme options for law firm logos. This usually means the difference between serif and sans-serif font. What does that mean? Open Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Type your law firm name in Times New Roman, Georgia, or Garamond font. Then, type your firm name again in either Arial or Helvetica. The first three fonts are considered serif fonts because you can see they have little lines on the bottom and sides of letters like A, B, and C. The sansserif fonts do not have these lines. Serif fonts are associated with newspapers, considered more traditional fonts. Sans-serif fonts are associated with Internet content and are considered modern. Do you want your law firm to have the appearance of a traditional, storied practice or do you want it to appear sleek, adaptive, and modern? The choice is yours.

 Choose a Font

Now that we’ve decided whether to go serif or sans-serif, we need to choose which font is going to represent the firm. First thing’s first, it should be noted that you should NOT use a commonly used font. Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman. People see these fonts every day. Whether they recognize them immediately as Arial, Helvetica, or Times New Roman, people know these fonts. They see Times New Roman while reading the newspaper. They see Helvetica when getting on the subway. They see Arial while reading websites. These fonts do not make an impression anymore.

There are many sites where you can download fonts for free. Google has a directory of free fonts, most of which you’re guaranteed to not have come across. Take a look around. Use the Google Font tool to test out your law firm name in different fonts and compare them side by side.

One last tip on choosing a font: Don’t be indecisive. While two or three fonts may look similar to you, your clients will never know the difference when you choose a font for your law firm logo. They will never know that it was down to three similar fonts. The client will likely not be influenced any differently by similar looking fonts. You may want to ask someone else for their opinion on two or three fonts, but make a choice and stick with it.

 Choose Your Colors

Online you can find many color wheel tools useful to help web designers choose color schemes. Click on a primary color and they will suggest complementary colors. Just make sure that you use a color selection helping tool. Otherwise, you may end up picking two colors that just don’t work together.

When picking colors, try avoiding those of a law firm in your practice area and region. You want to make sure you stand apart in the mind of the client. If you think every color combination has been taken by the firms in your region, just ensure that your logo looks different to distinguish you from your competitors.

 Images or No Images?

Often a law firm logo entails an arrangement of the names of the partners. Sometimes it’s an abbreviation of those names. Other times, the logo includes a tried and true symbol of the legal profession—the scales of justice—or a gavel—alongside the partner names.

Generally, I hate the scales of justice and gavel. They’ve been played out. They’re overdone. They’re sickening. They’re unimaginative.

If you are going to include an image alongside your partner names, why not include a memorable image that represents your law firm, conveys professionalism, and also originality? You can do this by including an image, if you so choose, of the initials of the firm partners’ names. If the firm is Crane, Poole, and Schmidt, you could have a small CPS initialed logo. This is a more modern element to law firm logos, differentiates the firm, and also looks professional. So, if you are going to include an image, consider shelving the gavel and scales for something a bit more contemporary and unique.

Conclusion

With all of these tips in mind, you’re ahead of the game. Whether you decide to make a logo yourself or approach logo designers, you know what you want your logo to convey. You know the message you want your clients to receive. You know how your competitors look and how you’re going to look different. Now, you can clearly envision what your logo is going to look like without having to get wildly different designs from a designer that won’t be useful for your firm.

If you are proficient at Photoshop, I would suggest taking a shot at creating a logo yourself. If not, maybe you should consider hiring a logo designer. In this crowdsourcing era of Internet technology, logo designs can be incredibly inexpensive. There are many sites now like 99designs.com where you can crowdsource your logo design, having up to several hundred design mockups sent to you by freelance designers, with you choosing and paying for your favorite.

Good luck. n

Andrew Cabasso is a practicing attorney and cofounder of JurisPage, an Internet Marketing firm specializing in online presence solutions for law firms including website design, SEO, and search marketing. He has given many lectures and CLEs on website design and Internet marketing to legal professionals. He is on the Committee for Information Technology in the New York City Bar. Article Source: EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Cabasso

Executive Presence: I Know I Need It— How Do I Get It?

by Jessika M. Ferm

Executive presence—we all know when we’re around someone who has it. Executive presence is hard to define, but it encompasses a combination of physical, mental and emotional qualities that cause an individual to project a certain level of sophistication, charisma and energy. While a business presence is a highly personal matter and there is no “one size fits all” formula to developing one, there are some tips that can help you get started at differentiating yourself professionally.

IMPROVE YOUR POSTURE: Research indicates that people with good posture who carry themselves erectly are perceived as having confidence. An important aspect of projecting executive presence is the ability to communicate positively through body language. The good news is that it doesn’t matter if you are tall or short, you can easily maximize your executive presence by standing up straight, positioning your head with ears aligned with the shoulders, and relaxing the arms. It is a deceivingly simple exercise and for many it takes years to correct the hunched-over position we have become accustomed to after years of working in front of computers. Posture is so important that actors and celebrities are now hiring posture coaches to help them exude confidence and increased presence in order to get noticed.

COMMUNICATE STRATEGICALLY: Some clients who come to us for coaching realize that they aren’t being noticed by key decisionmakers and are often passed over for promotional opportunities or challenging assignments. It isn’t that they aren’t good performers or great team players, they just seem to get lost in the crowd. One strategy to get noticed without being abrasive is to start asking meaningful questions in meetings or sharing information that others may find valuable. Leaders with a high executive presence quotient are inquisitive and curious. They come across as caring and engaged without self-importance or bravado. This strategy works for introverts and extroverts alike. If you tend to dominate meetings with your comments and feedback, practicing asking questions instead of making statements shows a heightened sense of self-awareness and it invites others to join the conversation.

MANAGE YOUR BODY LANGUAGE: We all send non-verbal signals about how we feel, think or perceive a situation. If we are impatient, we may tap our feet or hands or we may be prone to interrupting others. One of my clients said, “I’m tapping my fingers to send a message that the person needs to speed up what they are saying.” My response to this type of statement is always, “Does it make that person speed up?” and the answer is always “No.” Instead, we are sending an ineffective signal that we are impatient and that the other person’s information or presentation isn’t valuable. Instead of sending non-verbal signals, which are often confusing, consider tactfully asking the person to hit some key points or communicate with him or her after the presentation how they could have been more effective. Once you can master your non-verbal communication signals, you will come across as a person who is caring, considerate, and a great listener. These are all aspects of executive presence.

ACCEPT YOUR FLAWS: The first three tips offer you some tactical solutions for developing your executive presence right away. Accepting your flaws and developing increased self-awareness may take a lifetime. It is an ongoing process with no end in sight. The good news is that you can begin by coming across as more self-aware immediately. Get comfortable accepting your flaws or mistakes by admitting to them or acknowledging critical feedback. I know this isn’t easy, but it will work wonders for your executive presence. For example, if you are told you made a mistake, practice responding with, “Thank you for pointing that out. What one action step can I take to avoid this mistake in the future?” or “I wasn’t aware that I was doing that. Thank you for sharing your feedback. It allows me to improve.” Most of us are defensive about our flaws and weaknesses and our natural response is to fight back or defend. People with high degrees of executive presence are non-judgmental of themselves and others and they are open to accepting information in a neutral manner because they understand that’s how they learn and improve. These four tips will help you get started in developing your executive presence. One good exercise is to evaluate yourself on a scale form 1-10 (1 being lowest and 10 being highest), and rate yourself on where you feel your executive presence is right now. Implement a few of these strategies and re-rate yourself in about six months. You may even want to ask a trusted friend or colleague to rate you pre- and post- to see if you are making significant steps forward. n

Jessika M. Ferm is a writer, coach, speaker, and consultant on leadership, management, and business topics and is known for her “no frills no fluff” approach to sharing information. She is the President of J.Ferm, LLC, an international leadership consulting firm and is the trusted adviser to leaders and managers ranging from Fortune 100 companies to start-ups. Article Source: EzineArticles.com/6546196.

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