O’Brien Architects Branding & Website

Objective
Founded in 1974 by Jack O’Brien, O’Brien Architects is a full-service, multi-disciplinary architecture, master planning and interior design firm headquartered in Dallas, Texas. In that time they’ve completed more than 4,500 projects nationwide and established themselves as an innovative architecture firm that pioneered state of the art visualization services. The firm decided in 2015 to rebrand the look of the company to better reflect their mix of seasoned veterans and younger employees and also their shift towards master planning and larger scale projects. When we entered into early discussions, it was important to O’Brien to retain the equity of their 40+ year old brand, but also evolve it into a more modern and sleek aesthetic.

Execution
The first order of business was to update the company’s logotype. Pairing Gotham, a very geometric san-serif that recalls letters found in the urban landscape, with their existing trademark breathed a bit of fresh air into an old look. From there, we proceeded to revamp the look of the company’s website. Our discovery outlined that O’Brien wanted the website to be more visual and less copy driven. To do so, we created a site that used a modular grid system of tiles that could contain dynamic content–new projects, blog entries, personnel, etc. and be refreshed with new work easily. We also introduced passive video vignettes throughout the site that show the company at work and bring the people of the company into focus. The new website strikes a perfect balance between the project work and the people behind it. From the development side, we built the site on the WordPress content management system to give the client full control of the updating process. Using the Twitter/Bootstrap platform we were able to translate the website experience perfectly from desktop down to the mobile experience.

Outcome
The website went live showcasing the O’Brien audience to the many different facets of their company. Squires & Company relished the chance to work with another design-minded group and create a dynamic site that will continue to generate interest for the firm into the years to come.