This was a groupwork project which relied on collaboration in between graphic design students and business students in order to create a solution for eDecks’/Kenning’s problem with low sales during the winter season.
1. Subject, Audience & Purpose
Kenning’s is a company that was established in 1984 in Yorkshire. The main problem that the eDecks company is facing is low sales during the winter season – most of their sales are from during the spring and summer as that is the season where most consumers prefer to do garden renovations.
Audience
One of the possible solutions to improving this company’s sales would be to renovate the website as it is disorganized and cluttered to the point of user confusion.
2. Relevant Design History
Firstly, I have tried to investigate whether E-Decks/Kenning’s have had a winter campaign in the past and in which ways they could be more successful.
eDecks has competitors which perform better in the winter due to the seasonal promotions that they offer. The first example is Travis Perkins, which is a building supply and home improvement company. One element which makes their marketing more successful is the consistent and strong branding, as well as a website which is clear and straight-forward to navigate.
Web Elements - Improvements that can be implemented
Ecodek’s website layout could be used as an example of how the seasonal collection could be implemented smoothly onto eDeck’s website. The layout of this element is neat and user-friendly – it is clear that the user is meant to scroll to the right in order to view the rest of the content.
Another example of a well-designed website that could be classified as eDecks’ competitor is Dream Decking. The navigation bar offers many options depending on what the user is planning to get out of the website (free sample packs, different types of products, requirements calculator, etc.) without overwhelming the user with choices.
3. Design Development
The second marketing group that we were working with has asked us as graphic designers to create a mock up of a pergola with cozy elements in the winter. This image is meant to appeal to customers who want to enjoy their pergola outside even when the temperatures are low. They have later asked to add a firepit as the main appeal of the poster – although eDecks’ doesn’t offer firepits currently, the sales during the winter might have improved if they were implemented into the catalogue. I have created a 3D Blender scene in order to illustrate this idea in a way that looks more realistic in order to make it easier to imagine for the potential clients.
The render that I created is meant to illustrate a winter DIY project that the customers could participate in to create this scene in their backyards. Then, I have added branding elements to the render in order to create a poster that E-Decks can utilise for advertising. I have followed the branding guidelines so that this design for the campaign can be recognized as E-Decks and be consistent with it.
Another way in which the marketing and the graphic design team collaborated is through having the graphic designers envision the marketing team’s ideas and how they would look in a real life context. An idea that has been proposed is to incorporate a membership option to the E-Decks website so that professionals who bulk buy can get a discount, therefore increasing loyalty to the service. I have tried to create a logo for this service and later tried to present how it would actually look incorporated into the website.
4. Teamworking
Before we (graphic design students) participated in teamwork with the art directors, each other and the marketing team, we have took a psychometric test which would help us determine our current role in group situations as well as what we aspire to be in the future. Personally, I usually do not take the leadership role as I am not the most confident in group situations, however it is a role that I would like to take on eventually because it would help me hone my design skills in the way that I could provide feedback to others on how their design could communicate better. Usually, I take on the role of a regular participant who tries to add new and creative ideas to the team when the other members are struggling to solve an issue.
After we have completed the psychometric test, we were organized into small teams that can harmonize with each other in terms of the roles that we selected, as well as being able to exit the comfort zone that is easy to fall into when working as a team. We were then tasked to come up with a small animation that has a clear beginning, middle and end. When I was in this team, I have created the storyboard as I have drawing skills which were useful in this task – my role was to communicate the ideas through imagery which then can be taken into reality (stop motion animation using photograpy).
When we have collaborated with the marketing team in order to think of a creative solution to eDecks’ problem space we have mostly followed the structure of trying to make the marketing team’s ideas come true in a visual sense. We have done this through creating mockups of numerous advertisements, posters and social media posts.
References
Web Archive (2025) What is guerilla marketing. https://web.archive.org/web/20170320145540/http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/what-is-guerrilla-marketing/ [Accessed 10/5/2025].
Travis Perkins (2025) Travis Perkins. https://www.travisperkins.co.uk/ [Accessed 10/5/2025].
Leave a Reply