Visual Strategy Guide

VISUAL STRATEGY GUIDE

SCHOOL: Academy of Art University

CLASS: The Nature of Identity

FONT: Avenir and Archer

SOFTWARE: Adobe Creative Cloud

All content for the Borders Visual Strategy Guide was collected, conceived, written and design by Fang Ci.

All Rights Reserved

Copyright ©2016 Fang Ci

No portion of this publication can be used or reproduced without the prior written consent from FANG CI. This Book is a non-commercial work produced as a student project for educational purpose.

VISUAL STRATEGY GUIDE

VISUAL STRATEGY GUIDE

Borders is an international book and music retailer. Founded in 1971, it has continuously provided knowledge to connect people around the world. In this Visual Strategy Guide, the Borders brand is re-explored. This expansion starts with a compilation of information and overall strategy. The existing soul is then leveraged and the brand reimagined with new directions and ideas. The result is the identification of an audience and the visual representation of the redesigned brand.

HISTORY OF BORDERS

Borders Group, Inc. is an international book and music retailer founded in 1971 by brothers Tom and Louis Borders during their college years at the University of Michigan. To better service each community, Borders tailored each store’s offering to its region. As such, a sister company, Book Inventory Systems, was founded to provide custom inventory.

Borders launched its online counterpart, borders.com, for the first time in 1998. Doing so severed its ties with Amazon. In addition, to consolidate its business, Borders sold off its businesses in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore in 2008. However, this wasn’t enough. With the development of information technology, reading books and finding music online became more and more popular. Despite everything it has done. Borders fell behind in e-books and e-commerce, giving rise to several competitors. The shrinkage of its market share caused Borders to go into a financial crisis. To avoid bankruptcy, Borders began to cut costs and conserve cash.

This only served to exacerbate the problem, as Borders fell more and more behind in the advent of digital books and goods. Investors began to criticize Borders’ sluggish approach to this market in 2009. This trend continued to spiral out of control, culminating in 2011 when Borders announced its plans to liquidate.

It is always a challenge to redesign a brand that is behind its times. To initiate a turnaround, Borders need to rebrand its image. Brickand-mortar stores, while they have their own charms and perks, are not what most audience crave. Borders need to follow the market trend and adopt into digitizing its goods and services. The emphasis here is to link the word “Knowledge” with the Borders brand. Knowledge has no boundaries in cultures, and will resonate in any market. The message deepens to include sharing knowledge in a variety ways to connect people across the world. Knowledge can make communication happen.

TIMELINE OF BORDERS

1971 1995 1991 1994

Brothers Tom and Louis Borders open an 800-square-foot used bookstore called Borders Book Shop at 211 S. South State St. in Ann Arbor, Michigon.

1992

Borders starts integrating music and movies into some of its stores.

Kmart Corp., which bought Waldenbooks in 1984, acquires Borders and creates the Borders-Walden Group.

Borders’ flagship store moves from 303 S. State to the ex-Jacobson’s department store on East Liberty. The bookseller is largest retailer in downtown Ann Arbor.

1998

The book store chain, renamed Borders Group Inc., spins off from Kmart and goes public on the New York Stock Exchange under CEO Robert DiRomualdo.

Borders launches an online retail presence for the first time at Borders.com. Nov. 12, Philip Pfeffer is hired to replace DiRomualdo.

2008 2009 2010 2011 2016 Future

Severing ties with Amazon, the company launches a new Borders. com.

Borders sells off its business based in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Borders cuts costs, conserves cash in effort to avoid bankruptcy in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

Investors criticize Borders’ sluggish approach to the emerging electronic books market.

Borders launches e-book store, starts selling e-readers, sets strategy to get 17 percent market share in e-books within a year.

Borders announces plans to liquidate.

Borders provides knowledge to connect people around the world.

Borders provides different services, such as education, media and foundation.

Brothers Tom and Louis Borders open an 800-square-foot used bookstore called Borders Book Shop at 211 S. South State St. in Ann Arbor, Michigon. The first Borders bookshop, with a meager stock of used books, was located in two rooms above 209 State Street, north of the State Theater. From there the brothers soon moved, briefly, to a tiny ground floor mezzanine operation in the Maynard House apartment building, on the southwest corner of William and Maynard Streets.

Kmart Corp., which bought Waldenbooks in 1984, acquires Borders and creates the Borders-Walden Group. At the time, Borders had 21 large stores and had valued itself at about $190 million, the New York Times reported at the time. Kmart acquires Borders and forms the Borders-Walden Group, shortened to the Borders Group in 1995.

Borders starts integrating music and movies into some of its stores. The chain's flagship store was in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan at the corner of Liberty and Maynard Streets, in the building once occupied by the defunct Jacobson's Department Store. Although not the original location, it was identified as "Borders #1" because it was the flagship store.

1995

The book store chain, renamed Borders Group Inc., spins off from Kmart and goes public on the New York Stock Exchange (Ticker: BGP) under CEO Robert DiRomualdo. At the time, Borders' innovative inventory management system was considered "the envy of the industry," as one publisher put it, and was a catalyst in the forthcoming boom in the company's superstore footprint.

1994

Borders' flagship store moves from 303 S. State to the ex-Jacobson's department store on East Liberty. The bookseller is the largest retailer in downtown Ann Arbor.

1998

Borders launches an online retail presence for the first time at Borders.com. Nov. 12, Philip Pfeffer is hired to replace DiRomualdo.

Severing ties with Amazon, the company launches a new Borders.com. Borders sells off its business based in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Borders opens its first of 14 concept stores on Lohr Road in Pittsfield Township.

Borders launches e-book store, starts selling e-readers, sets strategy to get 17 percent market share in e-books within a year. CEO Ron Marshall resigns to become CEO of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., which files for bankruptcy later in the year after Marshall’s departure. Borders executive Mike Edwards is named interim CEO of Borders Group. Executives describe strategy of "transforming the Borders brand."

Borders cuts costs, conserves cash in effort to avoid bankruptcy in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Investors criticize Borders’ sluggish approach to the emerging electronic books market. CEO George Jones is fired and replaced with Ron Marshall as global financial crisis raises questions about Borders' viability. Borders announces plans to close 200 of its small stores and cut 1,500 jobs. By February 2011, the number of small-format stores is about 170, down from more than 1,100 in 1995.

Borders provides knowledge to connect people around the world. knowledge has no boundaries.

2011

Borders announces plans to liquidate. Publishers weigh whether to agree to short-term debt in exchange for giving up immediate cash payments for book shipments. Borders announces decision to delay payments to more partners, including some landlords. Reports indicate bankruptcy filing may come with weeks. Deadline for bids passes without any new possible acquirers emerging.

Future

Borders provides different services, such as education, media and foundation.

MISSION STATEMENT

Borders provides knowledge to connect people around the world. People communicate across borders because knowledge has no boundaries.

REBRAND OBJECTIVE

W hat: Potential for Redesign

The new company provides knowledge to connect people across the world.

W ho: Target Audience

The target audience ranges from primary school students to professionals who want to learn and self-improve in different areas and would like to communicate across borders.

W hy: Future Expansion

Original Borders brand provide knowledge in retail stores in a traditional way. Along with the development of technology. It brings us a convenience and fast way to get knowledge in different ways. Actually Borders bankrupt is also because of behind on technology and e-commerce and fell behind the times and its competitors when it failed to get involved in electronic books and e-commerce. If the rebrand follow the technology step. It will be successful. Knowledge has no boundary in the world.

S oul of Brand

Borders shares knowledge to communicate across borders in order to connecting people in the world. Knowledge make communication happen.

POTENTIAL TARGET AUDIENCE

DAVID ANDERSON

the freshman

AGE 19 LOCATION San Francisco EDUCATION pursue bacholor degree OCCUPATION college student

1. David is a freshman who is pursuing a degree in computer science. He likes to work on the computer since he was little. Being someone who is from San Francisco where there are plenty of opportunities for engineering, he wants to learn more in college.

2. David likes reading books from all fields. He is always reading in the library and on the internet.

3. David likes communicating with other people on the internet to share his thoughts. As a result, he surfs the internet in his free time.

4. David knows a lot about other fields besides engineering.

5. Besides having a knack for it, David picked computer science as his major only after getting a lot of advice from other people.

6. David is interested in becoming an engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area.

7. David is always looking for tips and advice from upper classmen.

CHUNYANG WANG

the high school girl

AGE 18 LOCATION Shanghai, China EDUCATION will enter college OCCUPATION high school student

1. Chunyang is a high school student who is interested in English. She plans to go abroad after he finishes high school.

2. Chunyang likes to make friends on the internet. It is through this that she learned about different cultures and countries.

3. Chunyang has confidence in her written English, but wants to practice her oral and listening skills.

4. Chunyang wants to learn about what being in school is like in other countries.

5. Chunyang has many other hobbies, such as surfing the internet and watching TV.

6. Chunyang wants to sound like a native speaker, so she wants to make sure she has no accent.

7. Chunyang has a dream of traveling around the world to experience life in different cultures.

1. George is a university professor who is always communicating with his students. He would like to know what questions they would have.

2. He does research across different fields in his 17 years of career in universities.

3. George is a kind professor. He is always looking to help students with their studies and life.

4. George likes to travel around the world. He has seen much and would love to share his experiences with his students.

5. Students like George as a professor. He is humorous and full of knowledge.

6. George always give good advice to his students.

7. George is very patient with his students.

GEORGE EARL the professor

CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL the mother

AGE 37 LOCATION Australia EDUCATION bacholor degree OCCUPATION no work, focus on family

1. Despite working a full-time job, Charlotte has a 12-year old daughter.

2. Charlotte always helps her daughter on her homework.

3. She is having trouble doing so though, since it has been a while since she was in school. She wants to find a place to learn about what is typically taught in her daughter’s age.

4. She wants to be the perfect mother and give her child the best education possible.

5. She loves talking with other mothers and exchange experience.

6. She left her finance career behind to spend more time at home. Family is more important to her.

7. Her husband is very busy and do not have a lot of time to help their daughter with her schoolwork, so she needs to provide full guidance.

AGE 15 LOCATION Canada EDUCATION middle school OCCUPATION student

1. John is curious about a lot of different fields.

2. John always goes to the library and on the internet to learn about what he wants to know.

3. John’s parents did not come from a very educated background, so they can’t help him on his homework nor can they answer a lot of his questions.

4. John loves playing basketball and watching NBA online and onTV.

5. John wants to be an engineer and has the talent for it.

6. John learned about MIT and wants to apply. He thinks the best engineers are from there.

7. John’s parents are fully supportive of his education. They want him to achieve his dreams.

JOHN LANE the genius

JAMAL WILLIAMS

the full-time employee

AGE 31

LOCATION

Cape Town EDUCATION master degree OCCUPATION accounting

1. Jamal works full-time in a large accounting firm. He is very busy and plans to change his job to another field. He wants to switch to investment.

2. He needs to learn a lot about a completely different field. Jamal spends all of his free time to seek knowledge.

3. It is not easy for him to find a place to learn about investment due to his working hours.

4. Jamal has very few friends because he is always so busy at work. He cannot find anyone to give him suggestions on his plan to switch careers.

5. Despite being a manager, Jamal has trouble balancing his personal and work life.

6. He is a nice person underneath it all, and is ambitious about his career.

7. He wants to switch to investment and become more experienced.

OUTLIERS OF TARGET AUDIENCE

1. James has been retired for 15 years. He used to be a lawyer, and the world was a different place back then. Digital formats weren’t that prevalent before, so he is used to getting news and learning new things in the traditional way, such as from books, magazines, and newspapers.

2. After retiring, one of James’ hobbies is to have afternoon tea and read newspapers everyday.

3. He is not an avid internet user, because this is a new thing to him. Back in his working days, he would always get in touch with his clients through written letters and telephone.

4. He keeps a healthy life since his retirement. He excludes most technology from his life.

5. He thinks reading is a good habit to have. Part of what he really enjoyed about his previous job is researching about his latest case in the library. He loves writing and reading, but was never a fan of typing.

6. He moved out of the city after his retirement to live in the countryside. He wants to be far away from the city noise and be closer to nature.

7. He thinks very little of social media. He believes face to face communication is the better way.

the work hunter

AGE 35

LOCATION

New Zeland EDUCATION

bachelor degree OCCUPATION freelancer

1. Lily is a freelancer who is trying to use the internet to look for a job.

2. Lily has her resume and portfolio on the internet.

3. Lily loves to use the internet to make friends in other countries.

4. Lily loves being a freelancer. She loves having flexible time.

5. Lily is almost always on the internet. She works through the internet, and her social life is pretty much exclusive to the web.

6. Lily doesn’t care much about the way she dresses, because she almost never goes out. She prefers surfing the internet on a Friday night.

7. Lily lives in the city and is a technophile.

LILY JOSEPH

CURRENT COMPETITORS

Borders is an international book and music retailer. It has many competitors in the marketplace, including both brick-and-mortar and online stores. These are some of them:

Barnes & Noble, Inc., is a Fortune 500 company, the largest retail bookseller in the United States, and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products in the country. Barnes & Noble also invested in beefing up its online sales

In 2001, Borders made a daring and downright damaging business move when it partnered with Amazon.com and allowed the competitor to run its online sales business. Amazon.com also hurt Border’s online presence.

Books-A-Million, Inc., also known as BAM!, is an American company that owns and operates the second largest bookstore chain in the United States, it is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama.

Apple Music is a music-streaming service, developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing, curated playlists.

POWELL’S BOOKS

Powells.com is the online arm of the beloved bricks-and-mortar Portland shop, and even though it’s online, it’s still got the feel of what may be the world’s coolest neighborhood bookstore. Best for Independent presses, new authors.

THE STRAND

NYC mainstay The Strand boasts 18 miles of books, all of which you can search on StrandBooks.com. They’re picky about what they buy, so even used books are in good (if not better than good) condition.

BETTER WORLD BOOKS HALF

BOOKMOOCH SKYO

“Better World” isn’t just a name — for every purchase made on BetterWorldBooks. com, a book is donated to someone in need (over 13 million to date!).

BookMooch.com is basically free. Once you sign up, you enter a list of the books you have that you’d like to give away, and make a wish list of the books you’d like to get.

Based near Coastal Carolina University, Skyo.com is primarily devoted to helping you save money on textbooks.

Owned by eBay, Half.com is sort of like an all “buy it now,” media-only version of the popular auction site (no bidding here). They have all kinds of books (as well as music, games, and movies), but textbooks are especially easy to find here.

ADJACENT COMPETITORS

Borders provides knowledge through selling books and providing other services. Books are not the only way to spread knowledge, though. These are adjacent competitors:

CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

The California Academy of Sciences is a natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 26 million specimens.

MOMA COURSERA KNOWLEDGE

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

Coursera s a venture-backed, for-profit, educational technology company that offers massive open online courses. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to make some of their courses available online, offering courses in subjects.

BBC Knowledge Magazine was a magazine covering science, nature and history which was launched in 2008.

DISCOVERY CHANNEL

Discovery Channel is an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is the flagship television property of Discovery Communications, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav.

OPEN LIBRARY

Open Library is an online project intended to create “one web page for every book ever published”. Created by Aaron Swartz, Brewster Kahle among others, Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive and has been funded in part.

MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

MIT Technology Review is a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as The Technology Review, and was re-launched without the "The" in its name on April 23, 1998 under then publisher R. Bruce Journey.

YAHOO ANSWERS

Yahoo! Answers (formerly known as Yahoo! Q & A) [citation needed] is a community-driven question-and-answer (Q&A) site or a knowledge market from Yahoo! that allows users to both submit questions to be answered and answer questions asked by other users.

AMNH EXPLORATORIUM

The AMNH located on the Upp is one of the largest museums in the world. The one mission is: "To discover, interpret, and disseminate—through scientific research and education— knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."

The Exploratorium is a public learning laboratory exploring the world through science, art, and human perception. Its mission is to create inquiry-based experiences that transform learning worldwide.

ASPIRATIONAL COMPETITORS

In Border’s future state, the company will use a variety of ways to share knowledge. The aspirational competitors will become competitors after a successful rebranding initiative.

QUORA BIG THINK

Quora is a question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.

Big Think is an Internet forum that features interviews, multimedia presentations, and roundtable discussions with speakers from a range of fields.

KHAN ACADEMY

Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan with the aim of providing a "free, worldclass education for anyone, anywhere". The organization produces short lectures in the form of YouTube videos.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

The New York Times (sometimes abbreviated to NYT) is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18, 1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 117 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

National Geographic Channel (also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo) is the American digital cable and satellite television channel that is owned National Geographic Partners, majority-owned by 21st Century Fox with the remainder owned by the National Geographic Society.

EDX

edX is a massive open online course provider. It hosts online university-level courses in wide range of disciplines to a worldwide student body, including some courses at no charge. It also conducts research into learning based on how people use its platform.

TO THE BEST OF OUR KNOWLEDGE JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., also referred to as Wiley, is a global publishing company that specializes in academic publishing and markets its products to professionals and consumers, students and instructors in higher education, and researchers and practitioners in scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly fields.

DISCOVERY SCIENCE PLACE

The Discovery Science Place is a children's science museum located in Tyler, in the U.S. state of Texas. The museum often hosts free activities and community events.

To the Best of Our Knowledge is inquisitive and intelligent radio. Peabody Award-winning host Anne Strainchamps and her crew of seasoned interviewers stand ready each week to create brilliant conversations on topics from food trends to cow-tipping.

TED is a global set of conferences run by the private nonprofit organization Sapling Foundation, under the slogan “Ideas Worth Spreading”.

TED was founded in February 1984 as a one-off event and the annual conference series began in 1990.

WHAT IS DIFFERENT

The Brand Grid helps to visually describe the brand personality at a glance. The “before” is Borders as it exists today; they are sharing knowledge in the traditional way. While “before” encompasses the feeling of the traditional methods, the “after” represents the repositioned Borders. It clearly showcases how the brand has changed. Border’s future will be a more tech-savvy brand that showcases communication and knowledge.

BORDERS

The Borders of the future will focus in the area of media, education, and foundation. The soul of Borders is to share knowledge, connect people, and cross borders.

BORDERS

SOURCES

I mages

[1]

https://www.reference.com/business-finance/borders-bookstores-located-389411f98a283f2e

[2]

http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Borders_Group

http://il8.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/15722197/thumb/1.jpg

Words

[1] http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OogfyPEJkn8/TlPNnix0l0I/ AAAAAAAAJt8/RvZUMiu0HIw/s1600/borders-book-store-announces-bankruptcy-227.jpg

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploratorium

[3] http://www.amnh.org/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Channel

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wiley_%26_Sons

[7] https://www.google.com/search?q=Khan+Academy+education+logo&biw=1440&bih=683&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhj5HwurTPAhWH24MKHVKYC4wQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=DPo8zviOMBX5rM%3A

[8] https://www.google.com/search?q=National+Geographic+Channel+logo&biw=1440&bih=683&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJ9OqXvLTPAhVK04MKHZOqCEsQ_

AUIBigB#imgrc=kleUvLNIlfAhUM%3A

[9] https://www.google.com/search?q=Wiley+Online+Library&biw=1440&bih=683&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi89LTIvLTPAhWK0YMKHdcmDX4Q_AUICSgE#imgrc=hi4erVkGyhQKkM%3Ahttps://www.google.com/ search?q=discovery+place&biw=1440&bih=683&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNlPCbvrTPAhWM7YMKHZ5zCI4Q_ AUIBygC#tbm=isch&q=discovery+place+logo&imgrc=zAHrNr8O3P9FxM%3A

[10] https://www.google.com/search?q=moma+logo&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=683&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwip4r_7vrTPAhXp7oMKHcUCAOsQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=0fetw3HE6wXn9M%3A

SCHOOL: Academy of Art University

CLASS: The Nature of Identity

FONT: Avenir and Archer

SOFTWARE: Adobe Creative Cloud

All content for the Borders Visual Strategy Guide was collected, conceived, written and design by Fang Ci.

All Rights Reserved

Copyright ©2016 Fang Ci

No portion of this publication can be used or reproduced without the prior written consent from FANG CI. This Book is a non-commercial work produced as a student project for educational purpose.