SODA is a bookshop for visual culture that adopts the role of a tool for designers and a resource for their creativity. Fashion design graduate Sebastian Steinacker has shared his passion for exceptional printed works and visual inspiration with his customers for the past 12 years.

Interior design and product development for a bookstore in Berlin. (LP 1-8)

How to design a space that is completely self-effacing, directing all attention to the objects within it – around 800 magazines and books? A space in which the furnishings are merely a stage for these books and magazines, which – produced as they are by graphic designers – are themselves works of art?

 

To enable the 800 or so printed works to be presented by their covers, Designliga developed its own shelving system spanning 135 metres of display space. The design was driven by the principle that the background and foreground, the interior fittings and the space they occupy are a single uniform entity. The core idea was to streamline the variety of elements in the store by blanketing them in a neutral colour palette, then add graphic texture to further smooth out the distinctions between the furnishings and their surrounding structures. This approach created a space with a minimalist, clear atmosphere, despite the quantity of objects and the extensive display areas necessary for them.