Minnesota Decks
A studio concept for Minnesota Decks — a twenty-five year old Twin Cities deck builder who outlasts the houses they build on.
Studio concept
Minnesota Decks has been building cedar and composite decks across the Twin Cities and Minnesota lakes since 2000. Family-owned, BC-licensed, six hundred decks finished. The product is generational. The brand wasn’t. We rebuilt it the way we’d ship it.
Minnesota Decks designs and builds custom cedar, composite, and stone decks for the Twin Cities and the surrounding Lakes Area. Their differentiator is below the surface — galvanized steel substructure with a twenty-five-year frame warranty, used since before any competitor offered it.
The marketing problem isn’t one buyer — it’s two. A lakehome owner in Excelsior buying a three-level cedar build with a fieldstone fireplace shares almost nothing with a young family in Edina pricing out a four-hundred-square-foot back-yard upgrade. One brand. Two completely different reads.
The strategy
One crew.
Two driveways.
Path 01 · The lakehome
Multi-level cedar over Summit Steel. Fieldstone fireplace on the upper deck, dock connection on the lower. The destination project. They want to see the build sheet, the substructure, the species.
Path 02 · The back yard
Suburban yard, four hundred square feet, kids and a grill. They want to picture it before they spend twenty thousand. They need the consultation kit on the kitchen counter for a week.
What we made first
The wordmark.
Lora set wide and confident, with a thin cedar rule beneath, and the place + date in tracked-out small caps. Reads as an old Minnesota trade brand — the kind that puts a sign on the lawn and means it.
Path 02 · Selected work
The marketing site.
The back-yard buyer’s front door. Real projects on the page, the steel-substructure differentiator on the home, and a consult form that promises what we actually do — come measure, listen, leave, and design before we contract.
Path 01 · Selected work
The project sheet.
One page, faxable, the document a lakehome buyer hands to their architect. A featured Lake Minnetonka build with a side-elevation diagram, materials called out the way an installer reads them, and the substructure spec on the front instead of buried.
Build #024-12 · Cedar
Lake Minnetonka
Three levels.
One winter rated.
Western red cedar deck built on Summit Steel substructure for a 1924 lakehome on Carmans Bay. Three levels stepping down to the dock, fieldstone fireplace on the upper, hidden fasteners throughout.
1,840
Sq. ft.
3
Levels
25 yr
Frame warranty
What you’re standing on
- DeckingWestern red cedar, kiln-dried, hidden-fastener
- SubstructureSummit Steel galvanized · 25-year warranty
- RailingsBlack aluminum cable + cedar top cap
- FireplaceLocal fieldstone · gas insert
- LightingRecessed riser + cap-rail LED, dimmable
Built once. Stood on for thirty years.
Front side · 8.5 × 11 · Bone stock with cedar accents.
Path 02 · Selected work
The consultation kit.
A short take-home for back-yard buyers booking a consult. Cover sets the tone — lake green, cedar rules, a confident statement of how the build moves. Inside is the six-week timeline, the five steps, and what we ask of the homeowner.
Consultation Kit
Before
we build
anything,
we sit down.
What this kit is, what we’ll bring to the first meeting, and what we’ll need from you.
Page 03 — How a build moves
Six weeks. Five steps.
We don’t put a shovel in the ground until you’ve seen renderings, signed an estimate that won’t move, and met the crew that will be in your yard.
- 01
Site visit
We measure, we listen, we leave
- 02
Design + render
3-D before any contract
- 03
Fixed estimate
Locked for 60 days
- 04
Permit + build
Same crew start to finish
- 05
Walkthrough
Until you put a check in our hand
What we ask of you
- ·Your survey, if you have one
- ·An honest budget range
- ·How you actually use the yard
12-page booklet · Cover and the timeline spread shown.
Path 01 + 02 · Selected work
The yard sign.
Staked at the curb during every build. Reads from the road, sits on the lawn for two months, and stays after the build is done if the homeowner wants. Every yard becomes its own salesperson — back yard or lakeshore.
We built this deck
Minnesota
Decks
952-484-9222 · mndecks.com
24 × 18 inches · Lake green panel, cedar border.
Path 02 · Selected work
The fixed estimate.
Sent the day after the consultation. Tactile, one card, the number in serif type on a real piece of paper. The twenty-five year frame warranty seal lives on the bottom half. Locked for sixty days at a quote-specific URL. Built so the homeowner shows it to their spouse and the spouse says yes.
Fixed estimate · Locked 60 days
Prepared for
The Wahl family
Wayzata backyard · 480 sq. ft. · Single level cedar with railing
- Western red cedar decking — 480 sf$14,640.00
- Summit Steel substructure — 25 yr$5,820.00
- Aluminum cable rail w/ cedar cap — 56 lf$3,920.00
- Permits + design + cleanupIncluded
25-Year
FRAME
Steel substructure, twenty-five years. Cedar surface, lifetime against rot. Transferable when you sell.
Locked at this price for sixty days. mndecks.com/quote/MD-26-1142 or 952-484-9222.
5 × 7 oversize postcard · Bone paper with lake-green header.
Path 02 · Selected work
The paid social.
Geo-targeted to lakeshore zips for the spring booking window. Lake-charcoal backdrop, cedar deck-board rhythm, the line that tells the truth: you build a deck once and stand on it for thirty years. The 25-year frame warranty does the rest.
Spring 2026 booking
Built once.
Stood on for
thirty years.
25-year frame warranty
mndecks.com · 952-484-9222
1080 × 1080 · Static · Lake + cedar.
The brand system
Identity.
Palette
Lake
#1F2D2C
Cedar
#B07A4A
Iron
#2A2622
Bone
#F2ECE0
Type
Lora
Display · the wordmark · all headlines · the price
Karla
Body · UI · the small caps under the rail
Why this works
Most deck builders sell on photos. This one sells on what you can’t see.
Every deck builder shows the same lifestyle photography — family, sunset, glass of wine. Minnesota Decks owns the substructure conversation: galvanized steel, twenty-five year frame warranty, the reason the deck still stands at year thirty. The brand puts that fact on the front of the spec sheet, the yard sign, the home page. Differentiation isn’t new photography. It’s a fact nobody else mentions.
Build something good and want a brand that says so?
david@marketing-lions.com