Website for Bourne Zakheim
Project: Website Design and Development
Client: Bourne Zakheim LLP, Jonathan Zakheim
Location: New York, NY
Tools: Photoshop, Dreamweaver, WordPress, HTML, CSS, Javascript, SEO
Backstory: Bourne Zakheim LLP is a New York City based law firm specializing in insurance recovery and counseling for policy holders as well as a variety of general litigation services. The founding partner, Jonathan Zakheim, happens to be from my hometown of Cherry Hill and was in need of some professional website design services. Mr. Zakheim and his firm were referred to me by none other than Mogil Media founder, Max Mogil.
Law firm website designs may seem a bit constricting in terms of creativity and function, however, I think DoggHouse Productions and Bourne Zakheim managed to develop a happy marriage between the two. I have all clients fill out a prosepctive client worksheet, where we run down the 5w’s, draw inspiration, identify competition, and answer a few puff pieces (as Steve Zissous would say). One of the puff pieces led to Zakheim’s love of vintage maps – which led to some really rich photographic imagery that brought the site to life.
We dialed in on some classic New York City imagery through vintage cityscapes, closeups of the Statue of Liberty, gorgeous skyline panoramic views, and of course, a vintage world map. I put a sepia style color filter over all the images to create consistency in addition to a color scheme, which developed into a beige/cream highlight color throughout the site and menu bar. The site navigation features a really cool parallax style vertical scrolling effect where it’s both speedy and smooth and the rich imagery progresses at an off setting speed to create a dynamic user experience.
When the site was finished we made sure to use Yoast SEO plugin to optimize each page, section, and image in order to give Bourne Zakheim a competitive leg up on web search results for “New York City Insurance Lawyers” and other variations of the like.
Once the firm’s partners have new headshot portraits taken, we will be updating the site to include Wall Street Journal-esque hedcut illustrations of the partners at the top of their respective biographies. I’ve been in contact with the original hedcut creator, as well as his replacement/protege. I didn’t particualrly appreciate the New York attitude and competition I was getting between the two of them bickering over who is king of the hedcuts, nor did I think that their prices were justified. We are gonna have our favorite illustrator, Lea Wagner, draw them up when the time comes. For the record, she is responsible for the 5 dog boys featured throughout DoggHouse Production’s branding and homepage.
Congratulations to Bourne Zakehim on their business venture and website design!
Website Design executed with excellence by DoggHouse Productions in collaboration with Jonathan Zakheim and Bourne Zakheim LLP. That’s how the pro’s do it!