A Very Small Bookshop
Brand Strategy • Visual Identity • Merch Design • Marketing Material Design
THE BRIEF
My client Leah had a vision: a bookshop that felt like a safe haven - queer-owned, community-led, and stocked entirely on personal taste rather than sales targets. Operating out of a shipping container yard in Bristol, A Very Small Bookshop was a brand new business with a big personality waiting to be unlocked. Leah needed a full visual identity and a suite of launch materials to bring it to life from scratch.
THE WORK
The starting point was Leah herself. Before opening the bookshop, she was a tattoo artist - and her illustration style, full of playful little faces with tongues poking out, was too characterful to leave behind. The challenge was working it into a brand identity that felt handmade and joyful without becoming difficult to reproduce across everything from window vinyls to a tiny loyalty card stamp.
The solution was to build the icon around Leah's illustration - a hand-drawn book with her signature face peeking out on the front cover - and apply a subtle grain texture to give the whole identity an organic, tactile feel. Bold but organic typefaces did the heavy lifting across the rest of the suite, with a custom logotype that could scale confidently without losing its personality.
Colour played a huge role in communicating A Very Small Bookshop's two core brand values: warmth and silliness. A natural oat paired with deep burnt orange formed the primary palette, grounded and inviting. A secondary palette of pink, blue, green and sand sits alongside it - designed to use sparingly, but ready to add a pop of joy wherever it's needed.
THE OUTCOME
A Very Small Bookshop launched to an incredibly warm reception - a packed launch party, a strong social media response, and a brand that's already turning heads in Bristol. The identity is cohesive, instantly recognisable, and flexible enough to work across every touchpoint. A brilliant start for a bookshop that's small in size, big in community.
“Opening a bookshop was scary - coming up with recognisable, interesting and unique branding was scarier. Lils took all the fear out of it and turned the process into the most joyful and satisfying journey. Lils took her time to get to know every aspect of what I was trying to create, asking questions I hadn’t even thought to ask myself yet - we ended up with a product that feels as if she had got inside my brain and saw the vision exactly. Approachable enough to ask for adjustments, and just firm enough to know you are in professional hands. Choosing Lils meant choosing a brand I could have full confidence in.”
Leah Newman, A Very Small Bookshop
