Goodreads simply bought its first-ever emblem redesign, and it’s taking a web page straight out of BookTok’s aesthetic catalog.
For the reason that e book monitoring and reviewing platform debuted in 2007, it’s usually used the identical emblem: A brown wordmark that includes the phrase good in a thin sans serif and the phrase reads in a barely thicker sans serif, all set on a cream-colored background. Whereas the ultra-simple look was in all probability designed to evoke the nice and cozy environment of a bookstore or library, it additionally veers perilously near the corporate blanding aesthetic that dominated the 2010s. However in 2025, “bland” is the other of how one would possibly describe rising aesthetics within the e book group.
On-line platforms like Instagram and Tiktok have formed the best way publishers strategy e book cowl design, which more and more depends on eye-catchingly vibrant “dopamine colors,” chunky text, and swirling shapes to cease readers of their scroll. Carly Kellerman, then an affiliate writer for Zondervan Books at HarperCollins, explained in 2022, “Instagram has made the whole lot extra aesthetic, from lattes to style developments to e book covers to journey. I’m very cognizant of the ‘shareability’ of e book covers as I craft the route.”
As these eye sweet covers continued to populate customers’ Goodreads cabinets over the previous a number of years, the location’s personal branding was shortly changing into incongruous with the e book design of the occasions. On July 14, Goodreads introduced a brand new emblem that ditches the previous staid search for a contact of recent whimsy.
A brand new emblem with a touch of caprice
Launched in 2007, Goodreads was acquired by Amazon in 2013 in a transfer that swept the book reviewing platform away from a potential deal with Apple. Since then, Amazon has routinely been criticized for neglecting the e book tracker, which—on each its app and web site—largely looks the same because it did greater than 10 years in the past. Just this June, Amazon announced layoffs impacting Goodreads, although the corporate declined to share particular numbers with Quick Firm on the time.
In 2023, Jane Friedman, a publishing trade advisor, told The Washington Publish that Goodreads “hasn’t been all that effectively maintained, or up to date, or saved up with.” She added, “It does really feel like Amazon purchased it after which deserted it.”
Now it seems to be like Amazon is lastly turning a little bit of consideration to the platform with each a brand new emblem and some added options. The emblem swaps its former minimalist font scheme for a chunky, rounded serif font with a bit extra character. Whereas the brand remains to be all lowercase, it’s considerably extra daring, permitting it to face out higher on a display.
“Our new emblem is designed to higher signify Goodreads and is optimized for accessibility so it seems to be clear and sharp irrespective of the place you see it—out of your cellphone to a billboard,” a blog post on the update reads.
The emblem’s g character, which serves as a stand-alone image for the Goodreads app icon and social media profile footage, has been absolutely reworked to include a couple of bookish Easter eggs. In keeping with the weblog publish, the higher half of the character is supposed to evoke a magnifying glass, whereas the underside half represents an open e book, “symbolizing the e book discovery and sharing of views which can be on the coronary heart of the Goodreads expertise.”
Platform updates enhance circulation and drive gross sales
Alongside the contemporary emblem, the weblog publish additionally shares a couple of updates to the Goodreads platform. Beginning this week, the “Need to Learn” part—which lets customers compile books they hope to learn sooner or later—will now additionally seem in “Your Books” on Amazon for readers who’ve linked the 2 accounts.
Basically, it’s a approach for Amazon to drive prospects to accumulate their studying supplies via Amazon quite than an out of doors vendor. (This is likely to be a turnoff for some readers, given {that a} chunk of Goodreads customers jumped ship and joined the competitor StoryGraph earlier this 12 months to protest Amazon’s possession of the platform).
As well as, the weblog publish notes that Goodreads is increasing its e book catalog to incorporate greater than 1,000,000 audiobooks, in addition to constructing out its Studying Problem function to assist readers meet their annual studying objectives. On Reddit, followers are tentatively hopeful that the brand new emblem and accompanying updates trace that Amazon is planning to modernize its broader UI.
“I assume it’s a great signal that they’re attempting to implement some adjustments that I hope to be for the higher,” one Reddit person wrote. “The location (and app) have been virtually frozen in time!”
The emblem replace, whereas admittedly refined, alerts that the platform would possibly lastly be a better precedence for Amazon—and that, to think about what a future revamped Goodreads might appear like, the intense new panorama of e book cowl design is one place the place Amazon seems to be pulling inspiration.
