At Line, we are fortunate to have exposure to many aspects of the publishing trade, whether that's developing in-house systems, working with ONIX, or delivering marketing campaigns. By launching Telling Tales we gave ourselves an opportunity to work directly with distributors, meet small independent publishers and have regular conversations with book lovers.
Land to water
We started Telling Tales from our London studio and through pop-up events with appearances at Here East, the V&A’s Museum of Childhood and Cardiff Design Festival amongst others. Things really got exciting when we saw the opportunity to share our passion with a wider audience and commissioned a 60x12ft widebeam canal boat which can often be found on the canals of East London and operates as a roving trader licensed by the Canal & River Trust (CRT).
Building our boat
The boat was designed specifically for the purpose. It offers an adaptable space to convert from shop, to workshop and event space. The hull has been crafted by expert boat builders and has been fit-out by an industry leading team whose 15 years boat building experience is supported by backgrounds in product and furniture design as well as shopfitting. The design of the boat provides built-in shelving to showcase books at child height, additional headroom, a roof window and reading nooks for children. Materials such as Birch plywood have been chosen to provide a modern and light environment which is welcoming to both children and their parents.
