Nook HD System and Apps
America’s favorite bookstore, in the palm of your hand.
My role: Sr UX Designer, leading design systems and look & feel of the core media apps
In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia.
Throughout high school, I spent hours and hours in my local Barnes & Noble; looking at all the book covers, leafing through the magazines, discovering grown-up graphic novels. I felt safe there, and surrounded by things that gave me hope—that there was so much dark and silly and beautiful creativity in this world.
There are few other brands for which I have such an affinity. So when I had the opportunity to work at B&N, it felt like an opportunity to give back. I joined the team building out a complete overhaul of their Nook line of devices readying for a new launch, working on how the design system how it would be applied to the OS and core suite of applications.
Ultimately in retrospect I was contributing to the demise of this feeling, but hey: we made it look like paper, ok?
We wanted the feel of these devices to len into the B&N brand pillar of ‘cozy’, moving away from the cold academia of the previous designs of the devices and other media services on web.
Cozy, right?
The UI needed to convey that textured coziness, reminding you that you were reading a book coming from a bookstore, not a lifeless digital facsimile. I brought in organic shadows, stacks and splays for grouped content reminiscent of coffee tables, and spines to books and gloss shimmers to magazines. Most UI cut into the ubiquitous texture other than the primary CTAs, adding more contemporary brightness.
