Fern & Fable Books

A bookshop that feels like a story

Fern & Fable is a tiny, crooked bookshop run by two sisters and a cat called Chapter. They asked for an identity that felt like opening a favourite book: familiar, a little magical and full of surprises.

The problem

The shop sits on a busy street, and most people walked straight past it. The sisters arrived with a mood board of fourteen colours and no idea which to keep.

The process

We spent an afternoon in the shop before drawing a thing. The palette was already there: the bottle green of the old door, the cream of the pages and the red ribbon tied round every purchase.

Those three colours shaped everything that followed, starting with the window.

The result

Everything we made is meant to be picked up and kept:

• A storybook monogram and hand-painted signage.

• Bookmarks with tiny fables printed on the back.

• A loyalty card that folds out into a map of the shelves.

Footfall doubled after the new window went in, and the bookmarks are traded at the local school like football cards. Chapter got a name badge. He ignores it.