Concept project · 2025
Marginalia
Bookstore
- Branding
- Visual identity
- Social media marketing
- Retail and environmental design
Project overview
Marginalia is a bookstore brand concept inspired by the quiet ritual of reading, the texture of old paper, and the handwritten discoveries left between the lines.
The visual system pairs an observant cat mascot with warm, archival colour and a tactile editorial feel—creating a home for books, conversation, and well-worn stories.
The idea
A good story leaves
something behind.
Named for the notes readers leave in a book’s margins, Marginalia celebrates the personal, lived-in side of reading. The brand looks back to illuminated manuscripts, where monks and scribes filled the edges of sacred texts with odd little animals, humour, and private observations—small acts of imagination in the margins. It is designed as a warm neighbourhood bookstore where every shelf suggests another connection to make.
Process
Building a bookstore
with a point of view.
The visual direction began in the sketchbook, where literary ephemera, old paper, hand-drawn details, and character ideas could live together before becoming a full identity system.
View the moodboard
Core palette
From the
bookshelf.
Brand in the wild
Every touchpoint
invites discovery.
From signage and a digital storefront to printed matter and social content, the identity creates a distinct, collected world for readers to step into.
