Brand, mobile app and website for a publisher
Garuda Books
As sole designer, I created the brand identity, marketplace website and mobile app for Garuda Books, and other products.
The brief
In April 2020 the co-founders of Garuda Prakashan asked me to overhaul their website and design a mobile app from scratch, under a new brand that connects with young and old readers alike. As the only designer, I worked with the developers and senior management and set the process everyone followed.
- 01UX research
- 02Ideation
- 03Prototyping
- 04UI design
Who I designed for
Grew up loving books and still reads on the go, especially in regional languages.
Frustrations
- Travels a lot and cannot carry books
- Few ebooks in regional languages
- No reader community or forum
Goals
- Buy and read books easily on the go
- Build her own library
Spends spare time on spiritual and literary reading, and prefers physical books to ebooks.
Frustrations
- Ebooks are hard to read on small screens
- No place to talk one-on-one with authors
- Young people seem indifferent to reading
Goals
- Build a reading habit among the youth
- Create a community library that gets readers talking
- Write short stories from his own life
Framing the challenge
Problem
Design an interactive app that gets people to buy and read books, and keeps them coming back.
How might we
Make the whole reading experience unique and one of a kind?
Impact
Build a reading habit across society and make reading cool again.
Constraint
Established sellers dominate the market, and cost and time limits meant no feature could guarantee a sale.
Three insights
- 01
Make reading social
One-on-one time with authors, finding nearby readers, quizzes and crosswords, discussion forums and creative-writing challenges.
- 02
Make buying stickier
Trial subscription, priority delivery, better customer service and a wide range of books across domains.
- 03
Read inside the app
An ebook reader with multilingual support for regional languages.
App structure
Get started3
- Splash and onboarding
- Login by mobile OTP, email or social
- Sign up
Discover6
- Home with offers and top picks
- Search
- Categories
- Trending stories and blogs
- Shelf
- Notifications
Book pages4
- Book and ebook details
- Author page with follow and contact
- Ratings and reviews
- Pre-order alerts
Buy5
- Cart and wishlist
- Offers
- Addresses
- Payment with Razorpay or UPI
- Orders and tracking
Community2
- Reader Club: creative writing, nearby readers, quizzes, talk to the author
- Prime membership
Design language
Click a colour to copy its hex code.
The app
Splash
A gradient splash with the new Garuda mark.
Pick a screen, then scroll inside the phone.
The website
Homepage
The same system adapted to the web: hero, top picks, offers, categories and languages.
Scroll inside the window.