We’re thrilled to have been selected as a finalist for Inside Retail’s Customer Experience Store Design of the Year Award, for the design of our two new shops, Readings Doncaster and Readings Kids.

Working with local Melbourne architecture firm Nest, and drawing on our own experience of almost 50 years in bookselling, we aimed to create the best in-store customer experience in both new bookshops. We wanted our shops to be beautiful spaces for the community to gather, for ideas to be shared and for books to be discovered.

Readings Doncaster’s design captures the feel of an open book by using curved arches and curved wooden slats in the entryway, and the interior further highlights this aesthetic with arched bookshelves lining the walls. The interior bookshelves all have rolling ladders and the store has two sound-proofed ‘reading nooks’ where customers can pause, sit down and read a little of a book.

The design of the Readings Kids store aims to capture the feel of the outdoors while at the same time highlighting everything that is wonderful about children’s literature. The store features a moveable tiered ‘hill’, custom shelving, and the centrepiece of the store is a huge mural hand painted onto one entire wall by local artist, illustrator and author Marc Martin, featuring a range of animals, trees and a twisting, turning river.

If you haven’t already, we hope you come by and visit our new bookshops.

The winners of the Retailer Awards will be announced on Thursday 30 March at the Inside Retail Gala Dinner in Sydney. For more information about the Awards see here.