Open Shelf
A digital home for a small publisher
Content structure · Interface design · 2026thingsSmall
hoursThe long
way home
Independent words. Open possibilities.
The first useful page
Open Shelf is a fictional independent publisher with a small backlist and a changing calendar of readings. I designed a website that gives the books room to be read before asking anyone to buy them. The starting material was a list of titles, descriptions and event notes. Rather than inventing a large commerce system, I focused on the relationship between a book, its author and the occasion that brings a reader to it.
A structure that can grow
The first wireframe placed every title in an equal grid. That was orderly, but it treated a new release and a ten-year-old essay collection as the same kind of announcement. I replaced it with a featured shelf and an ordinary catalog below. The featured area can change without changing the stable book pages. Each book keeps its own title, description and related events, so an old link remains useful when the homepage moves on.
Reading before browsing
A book page begins with an excerpt rather than a large promotional statement. The typography uses a comfortable measure and a clear distinction between the publisher’s description and the author’s text. The practical details are present, but they do not interrupt the first paragraph. This decision gave the visual design a reason for its restraint: the site is making room for someone else’s writing.
The handoff question
I tested the layout with long titles, missing cover images and an event that had already passed. Those states are easy to omit from a presentation and common in an actual publishing workflow. The final direction includes a text-only cover treatment and clear event dates. This is a self-directed design study with original sample material, not a commissioned publisher website or a live store. The useful deliverable is the content structure and the reasoning behind it.