Ville de Luxembourg · Lëtzebuerg City Bibliothèque: Branding & Website Design
Brief
Having previously collaborated on several significant projects, we decided to hand in projects in response to Ville de Luxembourg latest bid solicitations. There were two tasks at hand: the creation of a new corporate branding and the creation of a website for Luxembourg’s municipal library, the Lëtzebuerg City Bibliothèque.
Challenges
There were multiple challenges we had to tackle in this project. One of the main challenges was to develop a visual identity with a more accessible and modern look which would attract a younger and more multicultural target demographic.
Regarding the website, the biggest challenge was finding a way to make all of Lëtzebuerg City Bibliothèque’s available resources readily accessible and improving its user experience by offering additional, online-exclusive, services to the user. One of the user experience challenges was, therefore, to learn which additional services a user might be looking for, such as recommended contents and physical resource availabilities, and integrate them on the website.
Branding
The rebranding of Luxembourg’s municipal library started with a major change: a new name! Cité bibliothèque became Lëtzebuerg City Bibliothèque, reflecting its plurilingual and diverse clientele as well as its position in the heart of the city.
This renaming was, however, just one part of a bigger picture; the overall modernisation of the library’s branding.
We completely transformed Lëtzebuerg City Bibliothèque’s branding and created a visual identity inspired by streaming apps such as Spotify and Netflix. Although the branding has benefitted from our signature digital touch, we absolutely had to ensure that we integrated some of the library’s fundamental features. We took the library’s categorisation system and integrated its different colours, used to differentiate each language, as well as the round shape of the stickers used to label books, to add a more dynamic look and feel while staying true to the library’s roots.
This new visual identity, based on the tag system, was designed to be an evolving, modular system that can be used to create a wide range of different messages and content options depending on the needs of Lëtzebuerg City Bibliothèque. Thanks to its dynamic system, we were able to easily apply the newly designed branding to the library’s signage, its website and its stationery.
Logo
Part of Lëtzebuerg City Bibliothèque’s revamped branding was the creation of a new logo. We came up with a visual logo in tag format inspired by the way librarians categorise books, using once again the different colours and the familiar round sticker shape, and the way people browse online catalogue platforms. The result: A modern and versatile logo with a high recognition value!
Website Design
Prior to the redesign, Lëtzebuerg City Bibliothèque’s website had only limited functions and didn’t really offer much of an added value to anyone visiting. We put ourselves in the shoes of a potential visitor and asked ourselves why one would visit the website and in which circumstance. We came to the conclusion that users would most likely consult the website on the way to the library to check whether a book, a dvd or an audio resource they were interested in would be available on-site, or maybe at home while scrolling through social media, wanting to look up a book or a film they just saw being advertised to them.
Taking into account these research results, we transformed the website into an online catalogue with a mobile-first approach. The catalogue contains all of Lëtzebuerg City Bibliothèque’s available resources and can be accessed at any time to check the status of a resource or borrow a resource, whether it’s on desktop or mobile. The catalogue is not so much of a stand-alone tool because visitors still need to physically go to the library to complete most actions, but it compliments the library’s physical services and improves the customer journey.
Back-end development
On the technical side, we created a fully custom solution based on the existing framework previously used for the backend of VdL’s CityAPP.
We created over 200.000 different items in data sets due to the sheer amount of resources available at the library. The real challenge here was to manage and work with such an elevated number of data sets.
We also integrated a real-time search function to turn the website into a fully functional catalogue system.
Conclusion
By developing a branding revolving around tags, we managed to create a strong foundation for the whole of Lëtzebuerg City Bibliothèque’s marketing activities that shaped the website redesign and turned it into a fully modular experience with an up-to-date look.
