Pillow-cat Books

Pillow-Cat Books is the first animal themed bookshop in New York. It is small, pink, and filled with used, new, vintage and antique animal books of all types and in all languages. This rebranding project is on a mission to craft a fresh, cohesive visual identity that will enable Pillow-Cat Books to connect with a broader audience. New branding solution features store flag, business cards, exquisite wrapping paper, website, instagram posts...as well as pillows!
- all meticulously designed to enhance the book-buying experience for customers.

---

^Concept

Pillow-cat Books’ branding identity is primarily embodied in its mascot, a pillow-shaped cat, handling book sourcing responsibilities. We creatively use books as the cat’s whiskers and a heart as its nose to convey a cute image of love and care for books. However, Pillow-cat Books is not just about cats; we are a bookstore that celebrates all animals. Therefore, icons are extended to pillow-dogs, pillow-bunnies, frogs, bird.. as well. 

---

For our typeface choice, we selected Iskra, which is vivid and dynamic, yet maintains the seriousness required for a logo. In the logo, we intentionally tilted the "i" slightly to mimic a book on a shelf. 

As a unique animal bookstore featured in rare and collectible books, we incorporate these book covers into our branding patterns, which can be seen on the website, posters, and Instagram. These patterns can be updated based on monthly book lists or categorized by different animals.

---

^{Color and Pattern}

All books and purchases come wrapped in our special wrapping paper and stickers, whether it is a gift or not! We want all our customers—animal or human—to be happy and fully satisfied! To achieve this, we designed four distinct patterns for warpping paper that blend illustrations and typography. Stickers feature icons of animals that correspond to the type of book.

---

Pillow-Cat’s branding colors align perfectly with bold and vibrant hues, leading us to choose green (bookstore color) and red (heart) as our primary colors, and purple and pink for our secondary colors.  We hope that every time you think of Pillow-cat, you'll remember that green animal bookstore on the corner of a NYC street, recall the joy of unwrapping your book, and feel the happiness that comes with reading a beloved book. We aim to create a warm, welcoming space that brings joy and curiosity with every visit.

Cats, Books, Life’s sooooooooo Good︎

---

Industry: Book Retail
Project Type: Brand Strategy, Visual Identity, Packaging Design
Year: 2023

^{Award: GDUSA 2023 winner,
Honourable Award of IDA 2023.}

---

Previous︎︎︎