Lu Design Studio

Introduce your business and what you do there?

I’m an attorney and the owner of Nozari Legal, LLC.

What challenge were you trying to address with Lu Design Studio?

I was inexperienced and needed help creating my brand. I also wanted my brand to be easily recognizable by my target market.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Lu Design Studio is providing full branding services in order to help us establish our brand identity and enhance our brand awareness. Their services include web development, SEO, and design efforts. So far, they've designed our logo and business cards and built our website. They now spearhead our SEO efforts.

What is the team composition?

Joseph (Owner) is our primary contact, but they have a team of at least four people working on my project.

How did you come to work with Lu Design Studio?

I met them through my colleagues. I liked Lu Design Studio’s clean style as well as their business-oriented and creative approach.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership began in January 2017.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Lu Design Studio has created a logo that represents who we are as a law firm. Furthermore, the website they’ve developed looks exactly like what we’ve wanted — unconventional. They’ve also done a great job with our SEO, which has made it easy for people to find our firm on Google. As a result, we’re much busier and have been able to get a physical space rather than just work from home. Overall, their team is doing a fantastic job.

How did Lu Design Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a strong project management process. On top of that, their team is available and responsive. Additionally, they present solutions while taking care of all the details so that I can focus on providing the best service to my external clients. They also have great communication skills, and we communicate through Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have great values and are committed to working with organizations that do good things for the world. Moreover, they produce high-quality work, and they always do what they say they will. Above all, they’re pleasant to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any complaints about Lu Design Studio’s work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Bring them in as early as possible so that you can see the direct benefit of their services. They’ll help you achieve whatever you want to achieve, whether it’s client acquisition or other services.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the Principal Attorney and Founder of the Law Office of Stephen F. Hall. I'm a criminal defense attorney and I focus my practice on federal criminal defense — that's anything from the significant gun and drug crimes to white-collar crime, pretty much anything in between fraud and all that sort of stuff. I have at this point, associated with a law clerk, so it's a relatively small firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with Lu Design?

Lu Design is my third website company. The first company I used was the company that I hired after I created my own firm, and they left me wanting certain things with my website. After about a year, I hired a different company that I had been talking to for quite some time, and they delivered exactly what they promised me. As I grew my firm and refined it and had a more refined clientele, I wanted a site that reflected that.

The site that I had previously was very effective and worked very well for what it was supposed to do, which was to drive traffic — but it looked like a billboard and that's not the image I'm trying to project. I talked to Joseph, the owner of Lu Design and for a long time, he’s been very patient with me, as I'm very slow to make decisions on things like this. I explained to him what I was looking for, what I didn’t like about my prior sites, what I did like, and what my goal was.

He understood it completely and was able to explain back to me his thoughts on how to achieve those goals and we began working together.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were able to make the website look refined and make it look like I was a professional. I’m a professional just by definition of my job, but they made it look like I was impressive. He had an idea for the color scheme and the palette that he would use to make it project a certain image.

He also had an idea for how he wanted the layout to work, so that it would be functional and also look good. If you look at my website, as you scroll down, it has information that's presented with some unique backgrounds presented behind the information as you're scrolling. The website is just very cool, very smooth, and it looks very professional, which is exactly what I was going for.

How did you come to work with Lu Design?

His wife is an attorney and she's in a networking group that I'm in. I had mentioned at a group function that I was looking for someone to redo my website, and she mentioned that her husband does such work — I eventually met him and talked to him and was very impressed with his work.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested about $10,000 at this point. There's the initial cost of the website and then there's also the ongoing maintenance. Maybe a little bit less than that, but in terms of projected costs, it would definitely be an excess of that.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working on the website in December 2020, although we had started talking about the same earlier in 2020 — the project is ongoing in terms of website maintenance.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I have no metrics. My entire business is referral-based, so I get all my clients based on other attorneys sending them to me. The goal of my website is to be a resource for potential clients to find out who I am, see me, and get a sense of my practice, which is why I don't care about keeping metrics on it. In one of the previous iterations of my website with a company called Scorpion, who again did a fantastic job, they delivered on everything they promised. 

I just outgrew that type of site. They kept really strict metrics on everything and every time somebody clicked on it, every impression of the page ended up in a search result, and every time someone visited the site, they called. I just don't keep that stuff, but I can tell you that all the feedback I've received from anyone that's visited the site is that they love it.

How did Lu Design perform from a project management standpoint?

We had a few phone calls. He's available by phone as he sometimes calls me if he needs something. I'm not paying attention to email, but email is generally the way we communicate — we also communicate via text. I’m always communicating directly with Joseph, the President, and owner of Lu Design.

We don’t have anything as structured as a weekly meeting. Anytime I have a question, he’s very available and anytime he has a question, he would just reach out — it’s very easy to get in touch with him and vice versa.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The finished product distinguishes him from other companies I've worked with in the past. I had worked with two companies prior to working with Lu Design, and one company didn’t deliver what they said they were going to. Lu Design is among the group of companies that delivered exactly what they said they were going to. Actually, Lu Design went above and beyond what they promised they were going to deliver. I'm so incredibly happy with my website.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I probably would have a better answer for you in like 10 years if I work with another company, but I honestly don't know what they could improve on based on what we did together because frankly, the communication is very easy. Anytime I have corrections or anything I want adjusted, it’s done in a timely manner. As I said, I’m pleasantly surprised by the quality of the website. I honestly don't have constructive criticism on what could have been done better or differently.

Any advice for potential customers?

Make sure when you're going into it, you understand exactly what it is that you're looking for, so that you can draw boundaries and guidelines for Lu Design. It helps them be more efficient in the process. I guess the one criticism I would provide, and this is more reflective on me than Lu Design, is that sometimes the process can drag a little bit, if you don't have a clear understanding of what it is you're looking for as a client — that was one of my problems. 

I didn't know exactly what I was looking for other than being able to say, I want a very professional-looking website and I want it to reflect this sort of image. That took some back and forth and numerous revisions, but that's the guide that I would give to potential clients.