BoardsDirect Redesign
In a quickly changing industry, BoardsDirect, an online store for office supplies focusing on whiteboards, have had the same business model for 10 years. They hired me to study the dangers they faced, and to find potential avenues forward.
Having been given no specific brief, I conducted a company wide ethnographic research, (of internal and external stakeholders) through a mixture of interviews, workshops, shadowing and ongoing ethnographic probes.
This along with a greater market analysis showed that the company would be unsustainable going forward, unless it adapted to the changing landscape.
Core problems,
The issues I found wouldn't be fixed with a modern website on it's own, deeper changes needed to be made:
- With most of their sales being a direct result of SEO optimization, they couldn't afford to modernise their website in fear they would lose the favour of Google.
- With a large percentage of sales going through Amazon, they were facing even tighter margins, and were losing any brand recognition they hoped to get.
- Core suppliers had already started selling their products directly through Amazon.
- Employees only seemed to view the company as a job and it didn't have any further resonance with them.
While the directors attribute the company success to their niche market, they operate as if they were selling anything.
This meant that while they had the unique opportunity of addressing their users very specific needs, they didn’t, functioning instead like any generic e-shop.
By honing in on their niche they could offer a unique service that more generalist competitors would have a hard time replacing.
The solution would be to create a value driven brand, since as an entirely sales driven entity, BoardsDirect didn't provide any added value.
After a lot of deliberation we decided the most fitting values would be those of the core product, the whiteboard.
The uses of the whiteboard are for learning, planning and creating, which together form the basis for innovation. And so we crafted a value statement to reflect those.
"Empowering people to take control of their lives, work and goals"
To fully represent these values, we created a plan for BoardsDirect to gradually offer more services, products and content, which would embody them.
Value-led Content,
organisational methods, learning techniques, workshop exercises:
-Informational articles
-Video Lessons
-Video Interviews (with project managers, teachers etc about their process)
Additional Services,
Starting out as a marketing expense, these would form the basis for exploring new revenue streams in the future:
-Weekly lessons in company showroom
-Pop-up lessons for company events and conferences
-Workshop facilitation services for clients
-Interior design services for office creative spaces
Additional Products,
Added value based on our ethos could be created just by modifying already manufactured products:
-Redesigning whiteboard kits so the cardboard backing of each had a different workshop methodology on it. This would allow users to passively collect a set to keep for their own reference.
-Wireframing kit, an early stages of development product that used printed magnetic sheets to allow for quick physical wireframing.
Early stage mockup of the whiteboard kit with the workshop card backing.
Rebranding,
It was important for these moves forward to create a brand that could eventually be seen as more than a store:
-Logo redesign, focusing on crafting a symbol that could eventually stand on it's own, while still representing the company's history.
-All new brand design guidelines.
-Focusing on in-situ imagery which shows the use of the products
-Bring modern elements wherever possible to the online experience (It was not yet possible for us to completely migrate the website to a new platform)
I was asked to create advertising for the company, and as there was no budget at the time allocated for shooting I collaborated with a local musician to create an animated advertisement.
The same constraints meant that when moving the company imagery over to show the products in use, it was cheaper and more time efficient for me to render those out in 3D rather than staging and photographing the products ourselves.
Amongst the branding preparations for the new site I developed a flat illustrative style for the company, along with a range of assets to be used.
