WINTERHOUSE
The Poetry Foundation in Chicago is now the largest literary nonprofit organization in the U.S. It was established in 2003 after Poetry, a small literary journal founded in 1912, received a gift that ultimately would exceed $200 million. Design firm Winterhouse started collaborating with the foundation in early 2004, just after it had been established. Working with the foundation’s president, John Barr, Winterhouse creative directors William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand helped develop a strategic plan for the new organization.

A critical element in this plan envisioned the web as a primary vehicle for the distribution of poetry to the reading public. Beyond simply putting Poetry magazine online, the foundation site was conceived— consistent with the scale of the foundation—to become the number one resource for poetry in English in the world.

Acting as design director for the foundation, Winterhouse prototyped the site before it was staffed. The prototypes helped define the creative brief and staffing requirements, consistent with the editorial content to be presented online (there’s an extensive archive). Once the editorial team was in place, Winterhouse started to build the site, and the design evolved. “We’ve been on a longterm development plan ever since, and have made significant revisions or upgrades every 90 days for close to 2½ years,” says Helfand. “The newest projects involve dealing with extensive audio and video programming—with partners like NRP, News Hour, WGBH and HBO—integration of Poetry magazine into Poetryfoundation.org, and creating new approaches and tools for search.”

“The identity of the foundation is derived from a 1915 copy of Poetry magazine we found in our journal collection in our barn,” says Drenttel. “What we discovered was a cover illustration of Pegasus by Eric Gill.” Pegasus was long an informal symbol for the magazine. “There are over 20 other images of Pegasus, including one by James Thurber,” he notes. “We decided to invest this new foundation with a bit of its own history, redrawing the Gill Pegasus and using Gill Sans as the logotype. This explains the first set of aesthetic choices.”

Winterhouse’s original brief was for a design that would allow continual modification and alternative presentations—hence the highly modular structure. “The Poetry Tool is perhaps the most exciting functionality we’ve developed,” says Drenttel. “It takes the tree structure of a complicated database with hundreds of classifications and offers a tool to find poems. It’s not very high-tech, but it’s had a huge impact on our thinking, getting us to move beyond keyword-based searches. The foundation now has the largest archive of poetry online, so this is becoming increasingly important.” Terry Lee Stone

WINTERHOUSE | CREATIVE DIRECTORS: WILLIAM DRENTTEL, JESSICA HELFAND | ART DIRECTOR: WILLIAM DRENTTEL | DESIGNER: BETSY VARDELL PROGRAMMER/DEVELOPER: RUBY STUDIO | EDITOR: EMILY WARN | CLIENT: POETRY FOUNDATION | WWW.WINTERHOUSE.COM