Revitalizing a website in a transformative brand refresh
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Founded 25+ years ago in the North Star state, SafeNet Consulting is a tech & innovation firm that keeps clients moving forward.
With the recent launch of SafeNet’s refreshed brand, they realized their website wasn’t up to snuff. True to form, they wanted to spur on their renewal with a new site that wouldn’t just express their new identity, but redefine the entire web experience at every step of the journey.
Partnering with Risdall Marketing, our in-house team redesigned SafeNet’s site with every interaction living up to its promise. The result: an award-winning site that won back-to-back WebAwards in 2013 & 2014.
THE TEAM
Agency Partner: Risdall Marketing | Creative Direction: Pete Fabian | UX/Design/Copywriting: Kaitlin Olson | Design & Copywriting: Ashley Bruce, Tina Karelson, Tammy McCormick | Development: Gabe Shackle
WHAT WE DID
Brand Identity | Website | UX/UI | Bespoke Content | Design & Copywriting | Information Architecture | Illustration | Iconography
Reshaping a web experience for real impact
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Our starting point was SafeNet’s new vision: Consulting That Moves You. Beginning discovery, we knew that translating their fresh story & identity across the entire journey—& doing it right—meant every part of the website experience had to feel entirely authentic to the rebrand.
We started digging in from all angles by interviewing key leadership, clients, & consultants. What we looked for was clarity—how to bring their story at the forefront without being side-tracked by minutiae. Plus, we wanted to break down how the current site structure compared to their competitors & redefine it to address any pain points along the way.
Optimizing UX with fresh perspectives
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After uncovering insights with the SafeNet team, we set out to build an ultra-dynamic website while still capturing the essence of the brand. We boiled down features & content, splitting the site into 4 main pages: Why SafeNet, Client Stories, Join & About.
Then, we structured the story with wireframes & jumped feet-first into user testing, taking the concept back to the group and using their feedback to fine-tune the design.
Infusing a web identity with "That SafeNet Feeling"
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For clients & consultants, the most important part of the site was the culture & values of SafeNet’s story & identity. That's why we packed it into every corner we could find. Designed with storytelling to convert, each page carries narratives about SafeNet's services, team, & process. The tone we created is intelligent yet down-to-earth, direct yet friendly—& clearly differentiated the brand by connecting with users on a more authentic level.
To increase the sense of visual depth, we expanded the palette with complementary colors added to SafeNet’s signature red & grey.
For typography, we knew personable Varela Round—flavored with slab-serif contrast from Museo Slab and geometric Oswald—wouldn’t let us down.
Design that makes content worth discovering
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We used a mantra for the design: Make it as dynamic as SafeNet's team of active consultants. For audiences to rediscover Safenet's story, we needed to craft a user experience that was dynamic & compelling, vividly capturing the unique sense of transformation that the brand was built upon.
Simple? Yes—but from that, a unique direction took hold using off-kilter, diagonal lines through site pages, drawing the eye to content and creating natural breaks and gridless feel to the layout.
We were constantly thinking of new ways to engage. We used movement as a guide—elements don’t just lead you from one element to another—they propel you there. Smooth transitions fade-in while scrolling to elicit surprise & subtle hover effects help the user engage and bring the site to life.
Fixed navigation keeps the angles ever-present, creating depth with illusory perspective to compel users to dive in. To pull users into site pages, we introduced in-page navigation above the fold, in a horizontal slideshow style, to give users a smooth, intuitive browsing experience.
An award-winning brand website redesign
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In the days following launch, SafeNet's average visitor spent an average 10+ minutes on the website (a 75% boost to engagement). To top it off, our team's collaboration with Risdall Advertising on the site redesign ended up winning back-to-back WebAwards in 2013 & 2014 to boot. Most of all, we created a digital experience that truly reflects SafeNet's story & shares their unique identity with the world: like SafeNet, it's responsive, flexible & ready to keep moving forward.