Poetry Society of America
Bringing poetry to the masses with a new content management system and a refreshed look and feel.
The Poetry Society of America is the nation’s oldest poetry organization, founded in 1910. As book lovers ourselves, we were kind of geeking out about this project. With a growing membership, a brand new logo by the ultra-talented Gabriele Wilson Design and an ongoing desire to highlight great poetry, both old and new, the Poetry Society of America turned to Look North to help bring their vision to life.
The Poetry Society is over 100 years old, but now we can proudly say our website is in the 21st century, with mobile design and commerce at the forefront. Look North was a terrific partner; they were collaborative, responsive, and forward thinking. I want to hire them all over again!
— Brett Fletcher Lauer, Deputy Director
Challenges
Modernizing the online experience for a national literary organization for site visitors and administrators alike.
The Poetry Society of America needed a new website to function in different ways for different audiences. These audiences include members, donors, poets, poetry enthusiasts, educators and more.
The new site needed to be mobile-friendly with a responsive design for all devices. Poetry Society also wanted to create a better user experience that would entice new members to join and also retain their existing members via recurring membership payment plans. In order to do this the user flow needed to be an easy, modern process.
Finally, the website needed an improved content architecture for visitors and an updated CMS that could handle a steady stream of new content from the Poetry Society team. Previously some of their most important content such as Poetry in Motion was getting lost and buried in the website.
With these objectives in mind, plus a few additional improvements, we set out to design and build a modern publishing platform for a classic organization.
Top Site Features
- Flexible homepage promotion area
- ADA accessibility compliance
- Ideas & inspiration gallery
- Flexible marketing landing pages
- Product information CTAs
- Request a Quote
- Responsive design
Our Approach
We began the project with a strategy phase, working to define the architecture and technical direction for the new site, as well as auditing the existing site to plan our content migration. We also worked out an ecommerce solution that would accommodate one-off and recurring memberships and donations, as well as traditional ecommerce store products.
We created a new sitemap to better organize the user experience and developed hi-fi wireframes that surpassed outdated black and white generic models. These planning documents allowed us to get Poetry Society excited about their digital strategy and platforms with an early "first look" of what was to come for their website. Finally, thorough technical recommendations were reviewed with Poetry Society to make their website function as effectively as possible for both visitors and site administrators.
Dynamic Homepage
An inspired design system with a timeless look and feel
The look and feel of this website were top priority. Poetry Society had just commissioned a new logo and brand identity from Gabriele Wilson Design, which was a great roadmap to inform the rest of the design language for the website. The typography and page layouts were inspired by a combination of the Poetry Society’s own marketing materials and our competitive research into poetry editorial designs. And the color palette was primarily based on the Poetry Society’s yearly publication of chapbooks (also designed by GWD!).
MOBILE FRIENDLY TEMPLATES
Responsive design for all users on all devices
Poetry Society asked for a website that would allow visitors to enjoy content from any device without compromising the websites new beautiful designs. So we created a responsive design that provided a seamless user flow for desktop, tablets and mobile. Now visitors could browse content, sign up for newsletters and even make donations from anywhere.
UPDATED ONLINE STORE
A seamless online shopping experience
We updated Poetry Society’s online store so that it was now easy for customers to make purchases and easy for the Poetry Society to manage transactions on the backend. Their team is now able to better track their sales through our ecommerce installation and buyers have the confidence that their purchases are reliable and secure.
Modern ecommerce solutions
Improved membership and donation platform
Memberships and donations are crucial to the livelihood of organizations like Poetry Society, so we built a custom platform that is easy to use by members, supporters and admins. Previously, enrollment and donations were processed manually but now visitors to the website can create accounts, select membership tiers and submit payments quickly and efficiently. Donations are just as easy too - in two steps you are able to contribute.
And to top it all off, the platform allows for automated messages that notify members and donors of upcoming payments, renewals and outdated credit card information, which leads to organized and accurate records.
EASY TO PUBLISH
Publishing new content keeps visitors coming back for more
The Poetry Society website design needed to accommodate a steady stream of new content - poetry, articles, events, awards and more. So, we used Craft CMS to create a system that allows Poetry Society to customize and upload content for all their needs. We also did a complete overhaul of the website’s content architecture and reorganized it in a way that made content easier to categorize for admins and easier to find for users. Previously lots of great content was getting lost and buried and highlights like Poetry in Motion were not getting the spotlight they deserved.
Consolidated Admin Resources
Where Ecommerce and CMS all live in a single control panel.
Craft CMS allows Poetry Society to manage everything in one location. Both their ecommerce activity and their content is created, managed and stored in Craft and linked with Stripe. So with a system that is organized and accurate, Poetry Society is able to better interact with their members, supporters and poetry enthusiasts.
See what we can do for your project.
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