Poets.org

Poets.org is produced by the Academy of American Poets, a nonprofit charitable organization. The site was launched in 1996, becoming the first online resource for poems, poets' biographies, essays about poetry, and materials for K-12 teachers and currently hosts over 10,000 poems, 3,000 poet biographies, as well as essays about poetry, and some of the most important books, anthologies, and textbooks about the art form ever written. Poets.org receives an average of 2.5M visits per month.

I was tapped to augment the team at Tandem.io to design the poets.org website and improve the user experience.

The Challenge

Poets.org consisted of a large number of page layouts, and was suffering from persistent formatting issues. There was an absence of clear hierarchy in the typography and elements on the page. Color treatment and usage was also disorderly and had no defined system.

The Solution

I took inventory of all page templates, elements and typography throughout the site before grouping them into consistent presentation models. I then developed styles and treatments for each of the elements and redesigned the models to establish consistent and recognizable systems throughout the site. In the end the client was beyond happy with the work to the point that very little improvements have been needed to date.