libris
Reigniting passion for books in the digital age
Libris is a Romanian bookseller with roots reaching back three decades that had grown into one of the country’s leading online bookstores. Its market, though, is one of the most punishing in e-commerce: online book retail is dominated by giant generalist marketplaces that carry books as one category among millions and compete on price, stock depth and delivery speed. For a dedicated bookseller, trying to win that game on the marketplace’s own terms — cheaper, faster, bigger — is a race it cannot lead. Brandient was engaged to answer a harder question: what can a bookstore own that an everything-store never can?
The answer was the one thing a marketplace algorithm does not have — people who genuinely know and love books. Brandient built the rebrand around curatorial expertise, captured in the idea "We Know Books," repositioning Libris not as a cheaper warehouse but as a trusted guide whose recommendations carry weight because it actually knows the territory. That gave the brand a defensible position against generalist competitors, and a reason for a new, younger generation of readers — who increasingly discover books through culture rather than catalogs — to make it their bookstore.
The design brief was to hold two things together at once: the functional demands of e-commerce — a fast, easy, trustworthy store — and the emotional and cultural pull of books, which a purely transactional marketplace has no interest in serving. The rebrand ran across the whole experience: the online store, the corporate identity, packaging that treats a delivered book as a considered object rather than a parcel, and merchandising that carries the same message at every touchpoint — this is a place run by people who love books, for people who love books.
The result gave Libris a position built on the single advantage that price and scale can never erode — knowing books — and an identity modern and human enough to carry that expertise to the next generation of readers.
Client:
Libris
Industry:
E-commerce
Project type:
Rebranding — Brand Repositioning
Date:
2022
Services:
Brand Audit; Brand Positioning; Logo and Visual Identity Program; Corporate ID Program; Digital Design; Communication Design; Brand Guidelines; Brand Name, Narratives and Voice
The rebranding exercise sought to marry the commerce of books with a modern, humanist, and engaging design ethos.
Spotted
Other featured projects
News radar
Join the Brandient community! Stay in the loop with innovative branding insights, exclusive design content, and inspiring case studies.
Stay in touch with Aneta's latest opinions — articles, interviews, and podcasts — on entrepreneurship, marketing, branding pioneering, leadership, and culturally meaningful current events.
Brandient Radar is a select and non-intrusive, low-volume newsletter.
Follow our flight path — sign up for our Radar newsletter today!
get in touch
Client? contact us
5 Mendeleev Street, 3rd floor,
Bucharest 010361
Expert? Join Us
Are you brimming with talent and unshaken by challenges? Then, consider this your invitation to join our elite team, dive into complex problems, and have the opportunity to see your work make a mark far and wide.
Please submit your cover letter and relevant credentials:
Click to e-mail Brandient Careers.
friend? follow us
Copyright © Brandient 2002–2026. All Rights Reserved.