Case Study: Sunset Immigration
The Vision
The branding for the standard American law firm is dense with flags, scales, gavels, brass, books, mahogany, dark suits and other signals of legal and institutional solemnity. There’s a heaviness (and fustiness) to this visual shorthand, yet it persists across many small law practices nationwide as a stand-in for trust, patriotism and success. At Sunset Immigration, a law firm run by Matthew Blaisdell, that aesthetic isn’t quite suitable. There’s an energy to Matthew’s practice and a deep humanity built around values like transparency, respect and accessibility. Matthew’s approach is less formal than a traditional firm, and he adds levity where he can to make his client’s experience more humane. He knows that there is there isn’t a singular path through the system for each applicant, and as a result, he helps his clients understand their options and empowers them to make informed decisions as they move through the legal process, which can be daunting and endless and exasperating.
When we met Matthew, his primary client work was with individuals and families—many of them locals in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where his practice is located. Matthew’s clients appreciate his hands-on approach and transparency. In an environment where the stakes are high, his clients can depend on him to guide them through a system that is obfuscated by legal language and spiked with unforeseen roadblocks.
The Challenge
When he came to us, Matthew was looking to expand his business and needed an updated visual identity. His goal was to develop upmarket clients and expand his audience to include startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses. With several clients on the West Coast, Matthew was also looking to put more effort into growing his brand nationally. However, he still wanted to remain accessible to individual clients in NYC looking for assistance with marriage and family visas.
Our task was clear: to build a modern identity for Matthew that would connect with the startup and small business audience while remaining approachable enough to serve his current clients. We also needed to keep in mind another audience that Matthew was interested in cultivating: prospective colleagues. He was looking to make connections with other attorneys through his academic work in ethics. Matthew’s vision is to ultimately grow Sunset Immigration from a solo-practice to a small team, adding attorneys with deep business-immigration experience to target upmarket startup clients. The brand needed enough flexibility to eventually expand his beyond immigration law to become a multi-practice firm and to potentially one day house a non-profit organization.
The Process
Our first priority was to refresh Sunset Immigration’s style and palette. The original brand featured soft pastel gradients that felt a bit too passive for the work that Matthew does. We wanted to give him a brand that projected structure and solidity, but we didn’t want to lose his energy and edginess, which helped him stand out in a sea of solemn immigration law firms. We also wanted to capture Matthew’s humor and maintain his approachability. We needed to renovate the visuals to attract startups and small businesses, while still remaining accessible to his current clients.
We developed a primary color palette rooted in professional neutrals (shades of black, white, navy and gray) to hold the gravity of the enterprise and the industry, and used brights (fire, cobalt, neon, bright purple and deep orange) to express the sharpness, clarity and vibrance of Sunset Immigration and to distinguish it visually within the industry. We updated Sunset’s primary logo, by moving away from a more literal depiction of the brand name and added several supporting brandmarks, including monograms and stamps, which are versatile enough to be used in various settings and across print and digital platforms. One of our favorite marks is a loosely rendered monogram created with horizontal lines with white space in between (a nod to Sunset’s original logo) with a vertical bar forming the right edge. The monogram is bold, and the mark is structurally rigorous, vaguely maze-like. The white spaces between the lines evoke the pathways through the legal system through which Sunset Immigration guides its clients.
For texture and depth, we added a host of abstract images and custom graphics with patterns resembling topography and sound waves. The visuals add a sense of interconnected paths, which further echo the maze-like bureaucracy clients are faced with when seeking a new legal status and the conduits through that confusion that Sunset Immigration offers. The look adds a modern edge, and the shapes are flexible enough to be used as background interest or brought forward for bold, graphic moments. For added visual interest, we included a selection of bold gradients that echo Sunset Immigration’s original brand as well as a collection of duotones to help keep stock photos looking cohesive. We added clean, modern typography: Code Pro as the heading font, Inter for legible, versatile body copy and Space Mono for buttons and accents with a subtle, tech-forward edge.
Matthew also needed visual assets for three newsletters that he was in the process of developing. The newsletters were geared toward three different audiences and required distinct looks. We selected three brights from the palette (orange, cobalt and bright purple) for the newsletter headers and added chunky geometric forms, bold cropping and collage. The college pieces included physical elements indicating motion, insight and communication (an airliner, antique viewfinder and typewriter, respectively). We gave the elements a grayscale, textured treatment to provide high contrast with the bright, modern palette. The result is an editorial, eye-catching look.
The Result
Sunset Immigration’s repositioning opens the door to attracting startups and entrepreneurs without abandoning the individuals and families who currently help sustain the practice. The practice now has a foundation built on articulated values, with an eye toward new target audiences. There is enough flexibility built into the brand for the business to scale as the practice grows. The new band is contemporary and skews tech-forward but preserves Matthew’s human-first ethos. Sunset Immigration is clearly distinguished from other immigration firms in the industry with an edginess and clarity that breaks from the traditional law firm stodginess.
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