The Atlantic’s Writers at
The National Portrait Gallery
Overview A design effort, in partnership with engineering and editorial teams, to create a digital landing page and marketing assets for a collaborative exhibit by The Atlantic and The Smithsonian.
Year: 2022
Timeline: 2 weeks
Role: UI Designer
About the Collaboration
The tour features portraits of significant figures in literature, politics, philosophy, and culture who have contributed to The Atlantic during its long history. Each portrait is accompanied by the voiced commentary of a contemporary Atlantic writer reflecting on the life and legacy of a historical influencer who has helped shape the trajectory from abolition to the civil rights era and contemporary social justice movements.
The Design Task
GoalCreate a digital landing page on The Atlantic’s site to highlight the physical tour and special relationship between The Atlantic and The Smithsonian.
Requirements Incorporate featured portraits of writers in the landing page design to highlight the physical experience.
Digital design should match the tone and themes of the physical exhibit.
Challenges The exhibit features a variety of mediums including photographs, paintings, and sculptures.
Some portraits were off limits due to ownership rights.
The Process
The design vision for the header is a grid of vanishing portraits of the writer alums featured in the exhibit. Due to ownership rights, we could only use certain works of art in the collection, adding an extra challenge of creating visual cohesion. Design and Engineering collaborated on the order and timing of portraits in the animated header.
Responsiveness
The Landing page design had to be adapted for multiple surfaces. This required collaboration between Design and Engineering on how the grid and portraits in the animated header should adjust at each breakpoint.
