San Francisco’s Stout Books was founded in 1974 as a shop entirely dedicated to books about art, design, and architecture. In 2022, the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, an organization that preserves and advances the ideas of 20th-century designers Ray and Charles Eames, acquired the shop. This melding of like-minded groups inspired a new identity for the book shop, which was created by LoveFrom, a design firm founded by former Apple chief design officer Jony Ive.
At the core of the new identity is a revamped version of the typeface Washington, which had been used on the store’s original sign. Full of 20th-century personality, the font is complemented with illustrations by Satoshi Hashimoto. Drawings include the shop’s original owner, satisfied customers of all ages, and the shop’s distinctive storefront. On Stout Book’s home page, the storefront image changes with the seasons: foliage comes and goes, holiday lights appear around the door, and an Eames-like bird—also a hyperlink to the Eames Institute website—perches in the tree.
