Winter in America
Client: Winter in America — distributed editorial team (USA)
Scope: Website design and development, editorial structure, promotional system
Role: Design, UX, front-end implementation
Platform: Squarespace
Timeline: August-October 2025
URL: winterinamerica.org
Related Work: Book cover and promotional collateral for:
Winter in America (Still: Poets, Writers, and Artists Respond to a Fractured World
Winter in America (Again: Poets Respond to the 2024 Election
Context: Winter in America (Still was developed as a follow-up literary anthology featuring poetry, prose, and visual art from a broad range of contributors. The website’s primary purpose was to support a clear and accessible call for submissions while maintaining visual continuity with the anthology’s evolving print and promotional materials.
Developed in collaboration with the editorial team, the site balanced editorial clarity, contributor engagement, and long-term flexibility, creating a platform that could support submissions, project updates, events, and future promotional activity.
The Challenge: The project required a website that could:
Clearly communicate submission guidelines and deadlines
Situate the call within the broader Winter in America project
Remain readable and inviting despite emotionally charged subject matter
Support promotion across readings, events, and online channels
The design needed to be expressive without becoming rhetorical and structured enough to serve both contributors and organizers.
The Solution: I designed and developed a dedicated website that translated the project’s editorial tone into a clear, navigable digital experience.
Key design decisions included:
Editorial hierarchy for clarity
Submission information, project context, and calls to action were carefully structured to reduce cognitive load and guide contributors efficiently.
Visual continuity across media
The website design drew from the typography and tonal contrast developed for the book cover and promotional materials, creating a cohesive visual system across print and digital formats.
Restraint in service of content
Layout, spacing, and typography were used to support reading and reflection, avoiding visual excess that could distract from the writing itself.
Flexible promotional framework
The site was designed to accommodate updates, events, and future iterations of the project without requiring structural redesign.
The Result: The website provided a focused platform for outreach, submissions, and project information while maintaining visual consistency with the anthology’s print materials. The final site supported contributor engagement, editorial communication, and future promotional activity through a flexible and easily maintained structure.
What This Project Demonstrates
Designing editorial websites for time-bound cultural initiatives
Translating print-based visual systems into digital form
Structuring calls for participation with clarity and sensitivity
Collaborating closely with editors and cultural organizers
Balancing expressive design with restraint and usability
