ABOUT

There is little support for booksellers and publishers in the face of low-cost digital competition and an accelerating change in shopping habits. RISE Bookselling is a three-year EU-funded project that aims to create a supportive community of booksellers and publishers across Europe. Helping bookshop owners share best practices, focus on sustainability, and build diversity.

Ultimately if bookshops are supported and nurtured then stories and experiences can be shared and literacy across the continent can increase.

Brand Challenge
I was approached to pitch to create a brand idea for RISE Bookselling. Over the course of multiple conversations, we were able to create a ‘brand on a page’ to develop the why, how, and what of RISE Bookselling. Primarily the brand needed to feel friendly and approachable but still professional. The brand also needed to be easy for the in-house team to implement and scale across various languages.

I began researching current book trends by visiting my local bookshop. Booksellers are devoted to their trade and it occurred to me that the RISE brand should reflect some of the amazing book cover designs that surround them.

Visual Identity
Sound symbolism was first noted by German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler in 1929 as a map between speech sounds and the visual shape of an object, known as the Bouba and Kiki effect. Utilising these shapes was a way to represent the over 200 languages spoken across the continent.

By developing a broad palette and a conversational yet office-like font, I gave the brand flexibility to appeal to a wide audience.

The brand is deployed across a website, video, email, webinars, podcasts, social, and whitepapers.

I designed and developed the website and provided the team with training on Wordpress and the site theme. I am now developing a resource hub to promote events with Mail Chimp emails and social posts through Canva. The team has recently hosted a successful inaugural conference for RISE Bookselling in Prague. It's great to see this project coming to maturity in such a short space of time.