The Last Word (apart from being my favorite bookshop in Lahore) describes itself as the place to find the most exquisite books available anywhere in the world. Ayesha, the lovely proprietor, painstakingly selects the finest literature and cutting edge books on art and culture and hosts a variety of stimulating talks on the topics of literature, social justice, design and feminism.
I was asked to help establish the store's branding identity and website and had a lot of fun playing with the great aesthetic the store was already known for.
Branding: Logo redesign
The monkey with the typewriter (who is bound to be churning out Shakespeare!) has been the store's mascot for years. We loved the wonderfully sketchy quality of the logo (made by the talented Jamal Rahman) but it did not translate well on smaller scales and needed to be simplified for web applications.
Logo tests: Simplifying and reducing details
The final logo design hopes to retain the character of the original, while allowing for a more minimal illustration style and readable text configuration
Branding: Establishing the identity
The store and its products are used as the starting point to understand the brand identity.
Visually, key observations from the store included:
Natural textures
Pops of bright color
Illustrated messages
Friendly and warm
Unique
Moodboard of inspirations to establish the aesthetic to be used.
Color Palette
Typography
The following typefaces were chosen and a style for both basic section headings and illustrated headings was devised.
Illustrations
Illustrations are used to retain the brand's unique character making sure that the style used is sketchy and in line with the logo’s visual language
The Last Word website
Ayesha wanted an ecommerce website that stayed true to the unique character of her brick-and-mortar store so users could experience her lovingly curated collection of books and stay up to date with store events.
The homepage
The Last Word homepage gives an overview of the newly arrived stock of books, events at the store as well as the latest blog posts written by the talented contributing authors.
Events page
The Last Word has become known for its events, and this page serves to give details of upcoming events as well as archive previous events held. The store is also proud to host 4 book clubs, and an image carousel is used whereby the user can read more about each club.
Kids section
All details regarding children's books, hosted events, blog posts and book club are consolidated in this section.
Features page
Original content in the form of blog posts is populated here. These posts are also a way of driving traffic to and from The Last Word's Facebook page.
This project was such fun to do thanks to all the inspirations that the store itself provided, and the website is currently under construction, soon to be launched. Much excitement!
