El Libro Abierto is a Latinx bookstore brand I created inspired by my lively Hispanic culture. I believe having representation is important, and dedicating a place where you felt welcomed is the motivation. Here I have developed El Libro Abierto's inspiration, the logo ideation process, and assets such as gift cards, face covers, and bookmarks. I also incorporated audiobooks, since they are an important part of the book experience, which includes a UI for an audiobook app.
Being Ecuadorian American, I believe having representation is important. Growing up my head was always stuck in a book, reading about fairytales and princes, adventures in tree houses, or orphans in unfortunate situations and I rarely thought about reading books from my own culture. Most of my book recommendations either came from school or big-box bookstores, but these recommendations rarely pushed Latinx literature. I wanted to dedicate a place for reading to the young generation of Latinx, as well as the Latinx generation that didn't have time to search for a book written in their language.
El Libro Abierto is a branding project inspired by Carnival, a celebration held globally to celebrate a multitude of things depending on the region, usually held before Lent. Carnival comes from the Latin words carne ("meat") and levare ("to leave off".) I wanted to focus on the color palette of carnival through the lens of South American and Caribbean countries.
These colors portray a welcoming vibe while celebrating life and Latinx customs. El Libro Abierto is an open invitation to explore more inclusive titles, and titles translated into Spanish and Portuguese.
Here you'll find the ideation process for El Libro Abierto's logo.
El Libro Abierto in English translates to "The Open Book." I chose this name because in Latin culture you'll find that everyone is very welcoming and will invite people to their homes. I wanted the concept of an open home to extend to the bookstore, hence "El Libro Abierto."
Inspiration for the logo came from the PBS show "Between the Lions," one of my favorite childhood shows that taught me how to read. The logo is quite literal but took a few tries to position it correctly and define the width of each page. The logos' main colors feature blue and tan, but there are other color iterations, which you can see in the app section.
Here I've included a product that would be sold in store, which includes gift cards, face masks, and bookmarks. I've incorporated a red flower to the product to add a pop of color to not utilize the logo. The face masks include the quiche catchphrase "This is my book cover" and since this collection was made during the pandemic it made sense to add something that everyone was utilizing.
I like audiobooks, a lot of people do. Though I noticed a lack in the audiobook application market at the time of making this, I noticed a larger gap for inclusive audiobooks being advertised. A place where you can toggle between Spanish, English, and Portuguese.
Having this in mind, I made sure the User Interface offered the ability to read a description in both English and Spanish, as well as advertised genres in Spanish, English, and Portuguese. Allowing the user to toggle between languages gives them more freedom to practice other languages. The option to buy the e-book with the audiobook was also an intentional choice. It was also intentional to mix Spanish audiobooks with English audiobooks giving users an inclusive feel.
The user interface is designed in a black backdrop, for easy readability, and features El Libro Abierto's yellow accent colors, with the lettering logo in red and titles in blue.
A lesson I learned while making this brand logo is challenging for me since I put a lot of pressure on a logo. From ideation to sketching the process of the logo was the most time-intensive which took away from making the product. Something I would do differently would be to focus more on the product by creating a more realistic timeline that gave ample time to revisit the logo while expanding on the product I wanted to see in the bookstore.
