Oakpark secure their branding for the future

Oakpark Security supply integrated security management systems and personnel to businesses across London, East Anglia and the South East. They are our close neighbours, with their head office just 5 minutes’ walk from our offices in Colchester.

The management team from Oakpark Security wanted to modernise their branding, including a new website to better represent their growth within the security industry. They brought to the table an established brand in need of a subtle refresh to help translate it more successfully to online use. Oakpark were very open to our guidance to steer their brand onto greater things, which, we’re pleased to say, it has.

The first challenge was that they came to us with a logo that was set onto multiple lines. From the outset we knew this would cause the header of the site to take up a lot of space which would result in relevant content being pushed further down the page. We reworked the logo to set it onto one line and give a neater layout to the top navigation and header. Furthermore, this demonstrated the flexibility of their branding within different contexts.

We evolved their brand in several other ways which included refining the colour palette to a consistent yellow which we identified as something that would be a strong, defining part of the website and their brand. Also, existing print-based collateral included a grey-smoke effect which we translated for online use as a background for block elements of the site.

The online job application forms are an important feature because Oakpark Security are a large employer in several geographical areas. This was built in a way that enabled easy job management by adding a WordPress post in the same way as a news item.

One of the key business requirements of the website was to drive enquiries. To support this requirement each service now uses a Case Study to demonstrate what that service can offer potential clients.

When the team at Oakpark Security created the copy for their case studies, our advice to keep the content succinct and engaging was closely followed. This advice was given so that the content would support the user through their journey towards making an enquiry and not hinder them. Whilst the first part of the enquiry objective was achieved by creating concise content, this was reinforced by multiple calls to action on the case study pages, at the foot of the page and on the right hand side. Designer, Rob, created the IA:

“The intended journey for a user was to view a service, engage with the services in action (case study) and then convert by making an enquiry. The user’s experience of the website must support this intended journey by firstly making it easy to navigate the site, and secondly ensuring that they aren’t distracted by unnecessary elements and content. The whole point is that they can find what they need to find efficiently. The Oaksec website achieves this with the CTA boxes on the right hand side so when we first included these, we carefully considered what a user is likely to want to know and added only those things.”

In the first phase of the project, Oakpark Security only wanted to highlight three of their services across their website, however, they knew from the outset that they would want to add more services post-launch. The listings page was designed to be flexible to enable new services to be added.

During the second phase of the project we designed a ‘services’ carousel to display all services in an clever and compact way on the homepage, making good use of the space available whilst supporting the requirement to drive enquiries to all services within their business.

They also supplied us with high quality photography for their case studies. We set up an image style for them to carry forward as a brand element by slightly increasing the brightness, which adds a sense of vibrancy to the images. These images are used throughout the website, including the homepage.

With the management team from Oakpark Security being such close neighbours, we are continuing to work together, supplying them with help and ideas to make the best use of their evolved branding.

Whilst they are confident with the WordPress CMS we’ve provided, and make regular updates to the website themselves, they trust our guidance and continue to work with us on website additions.

Find out more by visiting our work or check out OakSec.co.uk.