In October 2022, when My Runway Group, led by founder Kojo Marfo decided to empower black businesses in the UK, the idea of opening a concept store in the middle of London was not well received amidst fears of lockdowns and physical shopping on a decline. Against all odds, the passion driven team known for their socially impactful initiatives made history by opening the very first black concept store in West End.
After several publications from media platforms such as Forbes, BBC, Bloomberg etc and a special visit by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan the team realised their physical space was not enough to stock everyone of the 1240 black brands on their waiting list. The need for an e-commerce version of Black In Carnaby was to enable My Runway Group to stock more black owned brands as well as make their unique shopping experience one that can be enjoyed by people nationwide and not just Londoners.
For over a year, the team made do with a template shopping platform to meet their highlighted needs. They have always wanted a robust, competitive, and seamless online shopping website that reflects the physical shopping experience their customers were used to.
Earlier this year, March 2022, discussions between My Runway Group’s leadership team and Vista led to a partnership that brought My Runway Group’s dream to light: The revamp of a new website facilitated by 99designs by Vista’s community of professional freelance designers. 99designs makes it easy to work with professional, creative experts from around the world and build brands through custom designs. We were pleased to have been assigned to Clement Willoughby as our designer. You can check out his 99designs page here.
We decided to find out from some of the team members of My Runway Group who played an active role in their new website revamp to discuss their creative direction, working relationship with 99designs and overall satisfaction of their new website.
Richard Afun is the Visual Producer for My Runway Group. He joined the team over a year ago and has been very instrumental in their campaigns and marketing assets. Richard shot the lifestyle images as well as the product images for Black In Carnaby.
Rich, we wanted to know what your thoughts are on the final design of the website.
Great job done with the website first of all. My thoughts are:
1) The website has a much cleaner and coherent look.
2) It is visually appealing and immediately gets the consumer/visitor of the page hooked.
3) The website projects a look into the future of what the potential of the online store would be and could be, which would inspire us to get it to that point of full potential.
4) Looks very professional as well.
What was your vision for it?
My vision was for the online store to enhance the consumer experience; creating an atmosphere of homeliness for the consumer to shop.
How did 99designs help with making this vision a reality?
Yes, the current website projects that and more. The look and feel of the website is very professional and can rock shoulders with other big brand’s visual appeal. Thank you 99designs!
Is the website everything you hoped for?
Yes it is. Looks great!
Next is the young enterprising genius that is Takenya Holness who is the Creative Associate for My Runway Group overseeing all things creative direction and general production.
We want to know what your thoughts are on the final design of the website:
I really like it. The lifestyle shoot came out very well and it represents the categories in the best way we could have imagined. The general layout seems spot on
What was your vision for it?
As creative director for the new Black In Carnaby shoot I wanted to make sure the colourful images we stock have a subtle undertone display. We went for the white background, so nothing overshadows the products. Also, it was important to shoot in Carnaby to carry the essence of youthful, modern day British customers.
How did 99designs help with making this vision a reality?
Our account manager Filippo was amazing. We went back and forth on our new logo design and scope of work. He helped us shortlist the web developer we went for, and it was amazing how everything turned out. We are all about supporting emerging artists so to have a platform to connect creatives to new opportunities was really aligning with our ethos.
Is the website everything you hoped for?
10 times over! Yes
Finally, the marketing lead for My Runway Group, Diana Evans. The brainchild behind all the exciting marketing campaigns My Runway Group has been delivering in recent times.
Hello Diana, we wanted to know what your thoughts are on the final design of the website.
It has really made my job easier! It is now very obvious what Black In Carnaby offers in terms of services. We have already started receiving enquiries about seasonal gifting and goody bags. I currently have a lot more content from the shoot we did for the website as new marketing assets for our rolling social media campaigns.
It is safe to say the My Runway Group team have had an extremely amazing experience working with Vista and the 99designs team to empower black businesses with commercial visibility laced with a seamless digital shopping experience. We encourage you to shop black by visiting :