Bookstore Design Dreams

While most of my time these days is spent in imagining financial scenarios, confabbing with lawyers and other experts, and fiddling with Excel spreadsheets, I was reminded last night (at an impromptu bar gathering that included a high percentage of bookselling types) that the fun part is imagining the store itself.

Those of us who have chosen to indulge our literary inclinations in the physical environment of the bookstore take our joy in the physical books, the shelves, the displays, and the other elements of the space, sometimes as much as in the words and ideas themselves.

My bookselling buddies and I discussed with relish some section division issues that are perhaps too wonky for even readers of this blog. But the other aspect I've been thinking about greedily lately is bookstore design. My dream is to find some experimental, idealistic, local (and affordable) designer to help me shape the vision for the bookstore's design. But here's some of what's already out there that I've been salivating over.

Boing Boing has a picture of a chair made of paperbacks, resident of the lucky Myopic Books in Providence, Rhode Island. More pictures at the Rag & Bone Blog.
I spent half a day at my job ogling photos of the Vintage Shelf (the image at the top here), which is such a witty design expression of my favorite paradox, traditional meets progressive, that it brings tears to my eyes. (You knew I was a nerd, right?) This would be so awesome for displaying special rare books or featured signed first editions; too bad it's not for sale in the U.S.

If you must deal with a two level store, why not do it with a book/stair-case? This seems like it would be awesome for a children's section. Or for my house someday, when everything is perfect.

As it turns out, lots of people are into this designer bookshelf thing. It's a simple functionality that lends itself to lots of expressions of creativity -- some more practical than others. The blog Bookshelf has tons of juicy pictures of creative bookshelf designs. Some make me roll my eyes as a bookseller -- designs that look like they would damage the books, or that books would fall off of, or that it's impossible to remove books from. But there are so many that I would be proud to display. The ones by Vincent Thomas Leman, which look like they popped out of Alice in Wonderland or maybe Naked Lunch, are laugh-out-loud delightful.


This is one of the ways that I think brick-and-mortar bookstores will continue to be viable in the future: by becoming retail spaces as showcases for design. On a panel last week for the NYU publishing program, I sat next to the brilliant Richard Nash, who quoted a study that had discovered that the less something feels like a selling space, the more selling gets done. Creating a space that evokes both comfort and desire -- which I know is what I feel when looking at these brilliant shelves -- makes folks want to be a part of it. And they become part of it by buying a book.

Who knows what the design of my store will look like? A lot depends on the space, the budget, and the intended demographic (which I have ideas about, but nothings certain until it's certain.) Whatever it is, I'm grateful for the designers who are inspiring me, and letting me think about the fun stuff.


What cool book-related designs have YOU come across lately? Comment or email me -- I'd love to share!