This is the best summary I could come up with:

At many Barnes & Noble stores, the green-striped wallpaper and hunter-green walls have been scraped away and painted over in sandy shades of white and pink as the nation’s biggest brick-and-mortar bookseller pursues, in fits and starts, a back-to-basics, books-first strategy.

Barnes & Noble has introduced the new look at several dozen of its nearly 600 locations, including the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the Grove shopping mall in Los Angeles, and at the 20 new stores that have opened in 2023.

Mr. Daunt, who describes himself as “an independent bookseller in background and ethos,” is pushing the chain to act more like the indie stores it was once notorious for displacing — and to embrace lighter, brighter interiors with modular shelves designed for maximum flexibility.

The modular shelving system, which is similar to the one at Waterstones, owes a debt to Feltrinelli, an Italian bookstore chain designed by the late architect Miguel Sal, whom Mr. Daunt considered a friend.

A layout known as “the racetrack prototype” — which Ms. Flanigan identified as “my least favorite design” — borrowed from big-box stores like Target, with cash registers by the door and impulse-purchase temptations around the perimeter.

The eyeglasses company Warby Parker customizes stores with locally inspired murals, she noted, adding that hospitality chains like Ace Hotel contain considerable variations within a single brand identity.

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