Client
Heritage
Industry
Publishing
Year
2023
Timeline
12 weeks
Team
4 specialists
01 / The brief
Heritage has published Moroccan literature in Arabic and French since 1963. Its identity didn’t show it. We redrew the house from its own archive: marque, type, spines, all twelve imprints.
02 / The challenge
Six decades of ad-hoc decisions: twelve imprint logos, no spine system, covers that read dated rather than classic. Younger readers walked past the shelf.
03 / The approach
We redrew the 1963 colophon rather than replacing it and paired it with a bilingual type system, Arabic and Latin at equal weight. A strict spine and cover grid makes any Heritage book recognizable at three meters.
+ Fig. 01 · Identity in progress
04 / The impact
backlist sales after reissue series
imprints under one identity
international rights deals in year one
05 / Palette
Click a swatch to copy its hex
06 / Deliverables
“ Booksellers started facing our spines out. Nobody asked them to. Sixty years in, the house feels young again, and my predecessors would still recognize it. ”
Leila Mansouri · Editorial Director, Heritage
07 / How we got there
01 /
Archive
Three weeks in the vault, cataloguing sixty years of marques, covers, and type.
02 /
Strategy
Positioning that treats the backlist as an asset, not baggage.
03 /
Redraw
The 1963 colophon rebuilt for screens, spines, and foil stamps.
04 /
Systemize
Cover grids and bilingual type rules any future designer can hold.
+ Fig. 02 · Delivered system
The record · more proof, next door
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