Book 1st.

Case detail

In this project for Book 1st., an urban book superstore chain, Gramco had broad responsibility extending across the range from the VI/SI (store identity) to the advertising communications. Breaking from the rigid conventional book store image, we positioned Book 1st. as an information transmission station instead. We gave the stores a stylish tone and included such amenities as CD shops where young people can browse at their leisure.

In the SI plan for the Book 1st. flagship store, we placed an oversized sign that falls into the visual range of every passerby on the wall of the building to achieve an outdoor advertising effect. Following the original stores in the Shibuya and Kanda districts of Tokyo, new large-scale stores have been opened one after another in such venues as Odaiba and Ginza in Tokyo and Osaka's Umeda district. In just a few short years, the brand has become almost a generic term for large-scale bookstores in Japan.

In late 2005, we developed an original desktop calendar series for Book 1st. The calendar was designed to serve as a perpetual calendar that can be used not only for a single year but for subsequent years as well. The series includes three "collections," or models, numbered Collection 1 to 3, respectively. The calendar proved so popular that in 2006 we were asked to develop new Collections.

We also handled Book 1st.'s initial Website design and performed a full renewal in autumn 2006. As a category of media store that provides a great deal of information, we created a Website for the brand that utilizes RSS distribution and sought to simplify the work of updating at the same time. We asked a photographer known for his work for fashion magazines to shoot the Book 1st. stores photographs, and employed a structure permitting random display of these photographs on the top page. Overall application of a monotone design contributed to creation of new Book 1st. and Sound 1st. brand images.