The current branding at Twice Sold Tales is limited and inconsistent across outdoor signage, print, web, and merchandise. Additionally, the existing logo doesn’t represent the rich history, story behind the brand, or experience in store at Twice Sold Tales. A stronger visual identity would present opportunities for increased marketing and reach for both current and new customers.
The new brand identity is based around the concept: "Wander into Your Imagination." The rebrand utilizes a library of uniquely crafted assets, textures, typography, and brand collateral that maintains a hand-touched feel. Our series of deliverables showcase a wayfinding system, signage, merchandise, and collateral that all had different requirements and yet remain apart of the same visual family. Our rebrand touches on the existing aspects of Twice Sold Tales' brand characteristics while allowing room for the brand to grow and expand with a fresh and recognizable new look.
Art Direction, Branding, Layout, Illustration, Wayfinding, Interactive, Environmental
11 Weeks | Jan 2022 - Mar 2022
2 - Maya Suzumura
Brainstorming, Concept Board, User Research, Competitor Research
Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Figma, Procreate
The process began with exploring the physical store and deep-diving into the history and story behind Twice Sold Tales. As a 35 year-old used bookstore in the heart of Capitol Hill, what really sets it apart is it's approachability, passionate staff, and live-in cats. With an understanding of the store's background, we worked through a visual brainstorming exercise of over 200 images to narrow in on visual tone and voice of the brand. We found that the four most prominent brand characteristics are: whimsical, inviting, authentic, and resilient.
Working from the key brand characteristics we narrowed down our concept and created a tagline: Wander into your imagination. We created a concept board to further inform our direction, and chose elements carefully to represent different tonal aspects. Wood substrates and textured elements represent the brand's resilience. The stamp-like graphics tie into authenticity due to their hand touched, unique quality. Photography is warm and welcoming, reflecting the inviting feel of the bookstore, and we utilize lots of layering and playful interaction between elements to reflect the brand's whimsy.
Creating a refreshed brand identity for Twice Sold Tales required designing brand touchpoints spanning interactive, environmental, and print mediums. We found our rhythm with the rebrand after creating a library of graphic assets to work from. Ensuring each of our graphics felt unique and crafted ties back to the idea of each used book being unique. With our library of assets and concept board, applying the brand across a variety of deliverables came more easily.
The primary brandmark for Twice Sold Tales represents the brand’s character, promise, and unique traditions. The typography used has a hand-crafted, stamped feel and texture that conveys the timeless and authentic qualities of the brand. The mark is open and inviting, and visually represents the adventure and fun that comes with the experience of browsing a bookstore. Finally, the twin cats at the center of the brandmark add a touch of whimsy, and quickly let people know that cats are an integral part of our brand and experience in-store.
Twice Sold Tales has an eclectic and ever-changing inventory of books, and specific sections can sometimes be difficult to locate as a result. As part of the redesign, section tags would be fixed from the ceiling and assist in creating a user-friendly experience when navigating the shelves. To accomodate for changes in Twice Sold Tales’ inventory, the wooden frames of the section tags would remain fixed, with the section labels themselves able to slide in and out of the frames for easy adjustments as sections change or are relocated within the store.
Tying into Twice Sold Tales’ history starting out as a book cart and in an effort to spread word of the brand and bring the store's inventory to the people, we created a concept for a travelling book cart pop-up that could be set up at farmer’s markets, street fairs, or even outside the store front to attract more foot traffic and new clientelle.
What Twice Sold Tales was really lacking was a design system that allowed them variation and adaptability while still reflecting the heart of brand. The brand identity we created utilizes a library of uniquely crafted assets, textures, and typography that visually translate Twice Sold Tales' authenticity and approachability, with touches of whimsy throughout. The rebrand helps to showcase the brand's resilience and long-standing history, while allowing room for the the bookstore's identity to grow alongside their clientele and community.
