"People kept using the same word - 'iconic' - whether they were thirty, fifty or seventy." The team interviewed staff who'd just joined and staff who'd been there for twenty years, customers since the 80s, locals, online shoppers, and LGBTQIA+ community members, revealing the bookshop's legendary status across generations and demographics."
"The visual identity wasn't going to be about turning the bookshop into something new, but bringing out what already felt "iconic" to the business "without smoothing out the strange, specific details that give it life". The design approach prioritized authenticity and preservation of the bookshop's distinctive character."
"Outside the shop there were two elements: a very 90s book‑and‑pink‑triangle icon on the façade, and a thin, hyper‑tracked sans serif wordmark on a hanging sign. That was the whole visual language." With minimal archival materials, the team worked from these street-level elements to develop the new identity."
After Hours bookshop underwent a rebranding project that began with extensive community interviews involving long-time staff, decades-long customers, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. These conversations revealed the bookshop's legendary status as an iconic queer space. Rather than modernizing the business, the design team focused on amplifying existing authentic elements. With minimal physical archives available, they worked primarily from street-level visual elements: a 90s book-and-pink-triangle icon and a thin sans serif wordmark on the hanging sign. The team redrew the original shop sign and developed a custom typeface based on Control Upright, selected for its editorial heritage, attitude, and subtle camp aesthetic that authentically represented the bookshop's character.
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