UPPERCASE

UPPERCASE is a Calgary publishing house that sells its own print output directly: a quarterly magazine for the creative and curious, the Encyclopedia of Inspiration book series, the Little U children’s titles, back issues and access to a digital archive. The readership is designers, illustrators, craftspeople and paper lovers, and the shop carries subscriptions, renewals, gift subscriptions and wholesale cases alongside single copies. Publisher Janine Vangool describes the business as a “one-woman operation”. Built on Shopify using the Motion theme.

Website Design

White page, black type, one soft blue. The body is plain white with black text and the only sustained block of colour is the footer, a pale blue panel carrying near-black lettering. Everything in between is coloured by the covers and spreads themselves.

Two sans faces and no serif. Type is Figtree for headings and navigation with Instrument Sans as the second face. For a publisher whose subject is typography and craft, the interface stays deliberately quiet.

Buttons that move. Primary buttons are solid near-black with a small arrow graphic parked off the right edge. On hover the arrow slides inward and the button pads out to meet it, the only motion in the layout.

A homepage of stacked promo blocks. Sections run full width, one idea each: the next volume, the newest release, a reprint, the sustainability page, the back issue archive. Each block pairs a photograph of the printed object with a short paragraph and one link.

Shopping Experience

Sixty-eight products across four pages. The all-products grid mixes books, back issues, subscriptions, wholesale cases and Little U titles into one alphabetical list rather than separating them by type.

Quick View instead of a page load. Grid cards open a modal carrying price, description, page count, trim size and, on some titles, a selected press list, so a buyer can read the full pitch without leaving the grid.

Bundles carry the discounting. Sale pricing is applied at bundle level rather than per title. The Encyclopedia Bundle 2025 drops from $765.00 to $575.00 CAD, and thirteen back issues sell together at $150.00 against $312.00 bought individually.

Currency conversion, limited shipping. A switcher offers more than thirty currencies with CAD as the default, while the stated shipping list covers Canada, the USA, the UK, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia. European buyers are pointed to a London distributor for books and back issues.

Brand Storytelling

Written in the first person. Copy is signed by the publisher throughout: “I’m Janine, the publisher, editor, designer (and customer service, too!) of this one-woman operation.”

Instructions before the sell. A panel headed “please read this before placing your order” sits on the homepage and covers customs, address changes, receipts and a request to proof names and addresses carefully.

Notable Features

Crowdfunding inside the storefront. The next volume is sold as a pre-order backed by a crowdfunding module on the site itself, not an external platform.

Community routes in the main nav. Stockists, a membership circle, submissions and a weekly newsletter sit beside the shop columns, so a reader can subscribe, contribute or find a retailer from one menu.