The popular bookseller Barnes & Noble is mounting a comeback while breaking free of one of the key rules of corporate branding and store design: consistency, writes Maureen O’Connor for The New York Times.

Many Barnes & Noble stores, including its Chester County locations in Exton and Devon, have been recently renovated and now offer a different look that moves away from the usual green-striped wallpaper and hunter-green walls. It is all part of the nation’s biggest brick-and-mortar bookseller’s back-to-basics, books-first strategy.

“Any design agency would have a heart attack if they could see what we’re doing,” said James Daunt, the Barnes & Noble chief executive. “We don’t have any architect doing our design at any stage. There’s no interior designer.”

So far, the new look has been introduced in several dozen of the almost 600 locations Barnes & Noble operates.

Daunt’s goal is to have the shops act more like the indie stores the chain was once notorious for displacing as well as to embrace brighter interiors with modular shelves that are specifically designed for maximum flexibility.

“I think we’re much better off with something that’s bright, that welcomes the world,” he said.

Read more about Barnes & Noble remodeling and comeback in The New York Times.

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