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Princeton University Press (PUP) has unveiled a redesign of its website, the product of an 18-month collaboration between PUP's creative and IT teams and a digital product agency Area 17.
With the aim of promoting the exchange of ideas, new to the site is a special Ideas section showcasing original content—essays, interviews, and “In Dialogue” features—from PUP authors. Pieces range from an interview with philosophy professor Jennifer Morton on the challenges facing first generation college students to a conversation between biologist Sara Lewis and Jeff Skevington from the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Arachnids and Nematodesl intended to reframe the way we think about insects.
Also new to the site is the inclusion of sample content from PUP's growing list of audio titles, such as from Michelangelo, God’s Architect, narrated by actor Simon Callow. Among other features are the site’s new Events page, which will guide visitors to book talks and discussions taking place at colleges and universities, bookshops and literary festivals, and Resource page for current and prospective authors, instructors, booksellers and media.
Because as well as looking to the future PUP wished to "signal a sense of precedent", Plantin is the typeface for the new website, chosen to echo the design of PUP’s Princeton office that was inspired by Belgium’s Plantin-Moretus Museum, the former office and home of the 16th century printer.
Press director, Christie Henry, commented: "Just as manuscripts need the symbiotic collaboration with publishers to realise aspirations, so too do we as publishers need partnerships to tell our stories. We are incredibly fortunate to have our website story, and new chapter in our historic narrative, guided by the creative expertise of Area 17. They have taken the proverbial blank digital page and animated it in ways we could not have imagined.
"Working with an outstanding committee of PUP staff, the Area 17 website collaboration embraced the ethos of peer review that guides our publishing and paired that with a creativity analogous to that which makes a cover design beguiling, or endpapers an unexpected delight."