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Work / Second-hand bookshop

Dog-ear

A second-hand bookshop with a loyal following and a shelving system only the owner understood. Stock changed daily; nothing it sold could be shown online in time.

  • Sector
    Second-hand bookshop
  • Location
    Ghent, Belgium
  • Year
    2026
  • Delivered
    Identity, spine labels, website
  • Dog-ear wordmark with an open-book mark
    Wordmark and dog-ear mark
    A row of book spines showing the colour-coded section labels
    Spine-label system
    An abstract layout of the Dog-ear website
    Website

    What we did

    • Drew an open-book mark with a turned corner — the dog-ear — that works as a stamp and a favicon.
    • Set an ink-navy, foxed-paper and burgundy palette that suits old books without looking antique-shop.
    • Designed a colour-coded spine-label system for the sections, printed on a roll in the shop.
    • Built a website with a simple 'just in' list the owner updates in a minute from the counter.

    The outcome

    The spine colours made the shelves readable to anyone. Regulars check the 'just in' list before they visit, and rarer finds sell the same week.

    “A stranger can now find the poetry shelf without asking. That used to be my job all day.”— Owner, Dog-ear

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