Lateral thinking behind Faber & Faber website

Lateral has redrafted the website for Faber & Faber, which goes live tomorrow, as the esteemed book publisher encourages highbrow bibliophiles to browse on-line.

Lateral has redrafted the website for Faber & Faber, which goes live tomorrow, as the esteemed book publisher encourages highbrow bibliophiles to browse on-line.

Established in 1929, the company boasts prize-winning authors including Seamus Heaney, Kazuo Ishiguro and Peter Carey among its star names, but previously its website, www.faber.co.uk, was more like a promotional brochure than a ‘working tool’, says Lateral creative director Su Sareen.

The advantages of a publisher’s website over those of retailers like Amazon is that they can ‘add value, depth and knowledge’ about their authors, books and genres and express the ‘philosophy and ethos’ of the brand, says Sareen.

Lateral designer Sam Collett is responsible for the design, which takes its cue from Pentagram’s clean and typographical treatments of Faber & Faber’s poetry catalogue. A custom-built ‘live database’, created by Lateral’s Fred Backman, enhances the site’s functionality.

Extracts and quotes from the authors recur in the design. ‘When people think of Faber & Faber, they think of poetry or maybe drama,’ according to Collett.

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