← All case studies
productbrand
Folio - a library that reads you.
A reading companion with a personality, built from a connection to a library lobby.
Client
Folio
Industry
Consumer / SaaS
Duration
4 months
Scope
Brand, product design
4.9/5
App store rating
2.4×
Reading retention
3 wks
Brand to prototype
The brief
Folio had a polished reader and an identity crisis: every screen said the same thing in different fonts. The brand - name, voice, palette, mascotish icon - was holding the product back from being recommended out loud.
What we did
- 1Brand came first, in a fixed six-week engagement: voice territory ('the friend who's read it'), a warm palette lifted from a library lobby, and type that survived both the lock screen and the long read.
- 2Product work took the reading flow apart: why the shelf, why the progress ring, why the DNF (did not finish) list is comforting rather than shameful. Every decision traced to a single metric - time lost to the app means we failed.
- 3The prototype landed in three weeks, and the recommendation engine's 'jitter' was visibly referenced in the empty state, turning a technical quirk into personality.
The outcome
Folio's reread rate is 2.4× the category norm, the brand got them listed in two app-store editorial roundups, and their product team has kept the voice guide pinned to the wall ever since.