Arkipelago Books
Increasing Online Sales 10x by Turning a Legacy Bookstore into an Online Hub for Books and Cultural Exploration
BACKGROUND
Arkipelago Books has been a pillar of the community for 20 years and exists as one of 2 of the only distributors of speciality books outside of the Philippines. Additionally, the store's collection of contemporary and historical Filipino American titles makes Arkipelago Books a leader in book distribution to libraries, educational institutions, as well as to the local and traveler alike interested in Filipino Literature, Culture, Social Sciences, Art, Poetry, History, and more.
With future plans to become a publisher, Arkipelago turned to Plinth to help refresh their brand, develop a new website, and find ways to grow their business.
Original Logo
OBJECTIVES
Refresh the Arkipelago brand.
Develop a new e-commerce website that would increase sales and is easy to maintain.
STRATEGY
Reposition Arkipelago as a hub for Filipino creativity and a portal for the discovery of Filipino culture through literature.
Create a new website with space for editorial content and collections to keep people coming back and incorporate powerful search features to ensure users can find what they are looking for.
Design a new brand identity that represents Arkipelago’s legacy and their plans for the future.
BRAND REFRESH
Our strategy was establish Arkipelago as MORE than just a Filipino bookstore. We wanted the new branding to communicate Arkipelago as a hub for the discovery of Filipino culture through literature and creativity.
New Logo
NEW LOGO
We designed the new logo to be simple, bold and stronger to connote the store’s history and subject authority.
The new logo focused on the A in Arkipelago and included subtle elements of the Philippine sun.
Since Arkipelago features Filipino authors from around the globe, we intentionally designed the new branding to hint at Filipino culture rather than use elements and colors traditionally associated with the Philippine flag.
We incorporated a rising sun to signal Arkipelago as a place for discovery and enlightenment.
COLORS
We wanted Arkipelago’s brand colors to stand out from other Filipino brands which relied heavily on the red, white, blue, and yellow color ways associated with the Philippine flag.
For the brand’s new color way we took inspiration from patterns and colors associated with the traditional Singkil cultural dance.
TAGLINE
From its inception, Arkipelago had been known as “The Filipino Book Store”. To reinforce Arkipelago’s new position as a hub for the discovery of Filipino culture we created the new tagline “Filipino Books & Culture”.
WEBSITE
Many traditional brick and mortar bookstores are struggling to make ends meet without a strong online presence. We designed Arkipelago’s new website to be more than just a place to find Filipino books.
Although the ultimate goal of the new website is boost online sales, we designed the front page of Arkipelago’s new website to have space for editorial content, collections, and features.
Turning Arkipelago’s website into a place to discover and learn will give people a reason to visit the site when not shopping for books and eventually foster a community of like minded individuals to contribute and share content.
OPTIMIZED FOR E-COMMERCE
Arkipelago stocks books in English and Tagalog in a variety of genres. The new Arkipelago website has a dynamic search feature which fills in partial words to help people find what they are looking for.
The shopping cart interface of the new Arkipelago website features a side bar of filters to help users find the book their looking for but more importantly, to showcase all the genres available.
“Plinth took the time to get to know our business, its history, our plans for the future, and incorporated that into a brand, strategy, and website that increased our online sales by 10x from last year.”
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