A Novel Concept

Everyone knows you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but, following the rules of retail, judging a bookstore based on its appearance would usually be fair game. With that in mind, the nation’s second largest bookseller, Borders, has introduced its concept stores, designed to glam up and modernize the chain in hopes of driving customer traffic and boosting sales. The concept stores add several interactive areas, including a Digital Center where customers can mix and burn CDs, publish books, explore family history, and create photo books, as well as feature several “destinations,” including Travel, Wellness, Cooking, and Graphic Novels sections with books and other merchandise related to those topics.

For the first concept store, launched this past February in Ann Arbor, Michigan, elements of the new Graphic Novel section of the store were realized with the help of digital printing. Borders tapped Ohio-based LSI Industries to create light boxes featuring images of graphic novel characters designed to hang from the ceiling. For the finished product, LSI printed graphics onto 3M Scotchcal IJ3630-20 translucent white vinyl using its EFI Vutek 3360 and then adhered those images to the four sides of each of the eight acrylic light boxes in the display, ranging in size from 48 x 24 x 16 to 15 x 35 x 11 inches. LSI is working with Borders on the additional lightbox installations in the coming months as 13 additional concept stores are slated to open this year.

LSI INDUSTRIES
www.lsi-industries.com