New York, NY (April 30, 2014)— The Academy of American Poets, the nation’s largest membership-based nonprofit organization promoting poets and poetry, marks its 80th anniversary in 2014. To celebrate they’re rebranding and launching an entirely redesigned website Poets.org on April 30, 2014 to close out National Poetry Month. Over the past 15 years, Poets.org has become one of the world’s leading online destinations for information about poets and poetry, with tens of millions of visitors coming to the site each year. The site redesign will ensure that the organization can introduce poets to a new generation of readers.

To bring the Academy of American Poets into its 80th year in style with its organizational rebranding and the site itself, they worked with renowned design firms Project Projects and Commercial Type to . . .

  • Restore the classic American font Electra for use on the web.
  • About Electra: it was originally designed in 1935—just a year after the Academy of American Poets— by William Addison Dwiggins, one of the United States’ most prominent typographers and calligraphers. Electra was designed for literary usage at the outset and soon became the standard font for the Norton anthology, among other literary books, but it was never fully digitized for use on the web, until now.
  • Enhance mobile viewing, navigability, and sharing experience so that users viewing from their phones, tablets, laptops, or desktops will all enjoy the same experience and share poems easily across social media platforms.

In addition to the signature collection of poems, biographies of well-established poets, and reference texts Poets.org is known for, the new site will feature an array of new content including . . .

  • Geographically relevant information (such as local poetry events and organizations)
  • Essays on poetic terms and techniques
  • In-depth video interviews with renowned poets
  • Free lesson plans tailored for K-12 teachers (offered in partnership with 826 National)

Their aim is to propel the organization into its next decade with a look that demonstrates its commitment to contemporary culture, artistic excellence, and an appreciation for the fact that poetry is an art form that has a rich relationship with typography, aesthetics, and most importantly reading, human-connections, and sharing.

Poets.org is the most popular publicly-funded website for poets and poetry, and the redesign has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lannan Foundation, and many generous individuals, as well as members of the Academy of American Poets.

We hope you will join the Academy in celebrating this momentous anniversary by visiting poets.org, on April 30, 2014 and by sharing the news.

Please contact Alyson Sinclair at [email protected] or 612.201.3867 with any questions or requests for the Academy or Project Projects. A link to download image files included below.

 

About the Academy of American Poets

Each year, the Academy of American Poets enables millions of individuals to engage with the art of poetry by offering an array of free and low-cost programming. The organization originated and continues to organize National Poetry Month, the world’s largest literary celebration, which takes place each April; it introduces readers to poets and their work through Poem-a-Day, which distributes 250 previously unpublished poems to more than 300,000 individuals daily; and annual poetry readings in partnership with cultural venues in New York City, including the High Line and Lincoln Center; it brings attention to poets who demonstrate artistic excellence by awarding an annual series of major poetry prizes; it publishes a biannual journal, American Poets, which has a readership of 9,000; and, produces Poets.org.

 

About Project Projects

Project Projects is a design studio focusing on print, identity, exhibition, and interactive work with clients in art and architecture. The studio was founded in 2004 by Prem Krishnamurthy and Adam Michaels; Rob Giampietro joined as a principal in 2010. Project Projects’ clients include the Berkeley Art Museum, Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies, Bernard Tschumi Architects, BOZAR Brussels, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Field Operations, Guggenheim Museum, Harvard GSD, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Museo Tamayo, The Museum of Modern Art, National Museum of China, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, Phaidon, Princeton Architectural Press, SALT (Istanbul), Steven Holl Architects, Tablet magazine, Vera List Center for Art & Politics, Whitney Museum of American Art, WORKac, and the Yale University Art Gallery. The studio has been a Finalist twice in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards (2009 & 2011) and has received numerous distinctions including the ADC Bronze Medal, I.D. magazine’s 2007 Design Distinction Award, the Art Directors Club Young Guns 5 Award, several Society of Publication Designers merit awards, and the AIGA 365 Award. In addition to client-based work, the studio initiates and produces independent curatorial and publishing projects.