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.
- SectorSecond-hand bookshop
- LocationGhent, Belgium
- Year2026
- DeliveredIdentity, spine labels, catalogue 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 catalogue site with a ‘just in’ list the owner updates in a minute from the counter, filtered by the same section colours as the shelves.
The outcome
The spine colours made the shelves readable to anyone. Regulars check the ‘just in’ list before they visit, and rarer finds are reserved by email the same week.
Identity & packaging
“A stranger can now find the poetry shelf without asking. That used to be my job all day.”— Owner, Dog-ear
Next project
Fennel & Rye →Mockup photography: Unsplash