BlackRainbow: Web Design
Background
We first spoke to BlackRainbow back in 2018 about how we could provide ongoing marketing and design support to this fledgling brand who were looking to mix it up with the big boys in the global intelligence, investigation and case management space. However, we determined that the time wasn’t quite right and the need simply wasn’t there. Yet.
The brief
Flash-forward 5 years and the phone rings… BlackRainbow had grown from a handful of subject matter experts to a team of 50+ with a highly evolved product offering (in the shape of the industry-leading NIMBUS ecosystem) and a new base of operations in North America. Now we had some catching up to do!
With ambitious growth plans and an enviable reputation within UK law enforcement and beyond, we were tasked with establishing an online presence for the brand that would resonate with the US market. We set about transforming the basic website that got BlackRainbow out of the blocks while the overall brand identity underwent a facelift.
The challenge
The existing website was heavily product-focused and very repetitive, with significant content duplication across the interior pages. The homepage was essentially an empty page from a content perspective and merely a prompt for users to select a sector of interest. In addition, the ‘resource library’ mostly contained links to 3rd party sites where the original content could be found. SEO on the site was all but non-existent.
Having completed a forensic audit of the site, including competitor analysis, market research, a technical SEO review and keyword opportunity research, we had a comprehensive blueprint for how to tackle the challenge ahead.
Our solution
The client asked for a “sexy” website with a black ops vibe, but as always, we approached the UX design phase with a ‘form follows function’ approach. We switched up the page structure and site navigation so the site would be more product-focused – putting the best-in-class tools that comprise the NIMBUS ecosystem front and centre.
We retained the sector pages but streamlined the information hierarchy and put the focus on the benefits to the end-user rather than a long list of features. Our goal was to depict how NIMBUS solves real-world problems for its users so we backed up the claims made on the sector pages with anonymised, sector-specific case studies.
Further developments
We also introduced an ‘About Us’ page to tell the brand story, establish the unrivalled pedigree of the team and showcase the brand’s slightly quirky personality. Something that was completely lacking in the previous website.
Finally, we created a ‘Knowledge Centre’ to replace the ineffective resource library. The knowledge centre (or center for the US audience) would serve as a platform for content outreach and thought leadership, and would play a key role in the brand’s content strategy going forward.
Visual design
Only when we’d fully planned the new site structure and content requirements (to resolve the long list of technical and on-page SEO issues) did we turn our attention to the “sexy” aesthetics of the new site.
We introduced a vibrant new colour palette, bringing in bold neon-inspired colours to complement the black and orange of the existing brand identity. These colours were used to colour-code products and sectors so they’d be easily recognisable as visitors navigate between different areas of the site. We also looked at subtle UX animations and textures that we could apply to lift the black page backgrounds and give a sense of depth.
Brand refresh
Our bold, neon colour palette was adopted by BlackRainbow’s in-house design team as they worked on new icons and visual identifiers for the NIMBUS product suite.
The logo was also given a refresh – sticking with orange for the icon but modernising the wordmark with a new rounded, tech-inspired typeface and bringing the new brand icon to life with animation. The new icon retains the rainbow motif of the original but also brings in fingerprint and radar shapes, which are more representative of the brand’s value proposition.
Next steps
With the new website now live and receiving rave reviews from BlackRainbow’s global customer base, we look forward to continuing our work with the in-house marketing team to drive traffic to the site via Google Ads, content creation and outreach, PR and social media support, as well as ongoing search engine optimisation.
