Penguin Random House relaunches online presence

The publishing giant has worked with consultancy Clearleft to create a new website aimed at consumers and a new corporate website.

By Angus Montgomery January 21, 2016 2:21 pm January 21, 2016 2:21 pm

Publishing giant Penguin Random House UK has relaunched its online presence, working with design consultancy Clearleft.

The online relaunch comes after the company was rebranded by Pentagram partner Michael Bierut in 2014. Publishers Penguin and Random House had merged to form the new company in 2013.

The publisher has launched two new websites, one aimed at consumers and one aimed at business audiences.

Bringing together Penguin, Puffin and Ladybird

Both sites are built on the Adobe platform and see optimised for mobiles and tablets.

The consumer website brings together the publisher’s Penguin, Puffin and Ladybird imprints for the first time on a single website.

Penguin Random House say so: “As the publishing brands with the highest recognition among book-buyers they will work on behalf of all of Penguin Random House UK’s publishing division’s authors characters and brands, building direct relationships with readers and reaching wide audiences.”

Consumer research

In developing its consumer site, Penguin Random House says it carried out research through Bookmarks, its 3,000-strong consumer insights panel.

It says it carried out face-to-face conversations with 200 readers aged from eight to 68.

The main insight it says it received was that visitors wanted to website “to get closer to the authors and characters they love”.

Author hubs and immersive areas

The new consumer site features author hubs, genre pages based around themes such as crime or romance, recommendations from experts and a full book, audiobook and app catalogue.

The Ladybird and Puffin parts of the site feature immersive areas dedicated to characters such as Peppa Pig, The Worst Witch and The Snowman.

Corporate site

The new corporate site is aimed at a business audience including authors, agents, press and job-seekers.

It has features such as dedicated areas to find out more about individual publishing divisions and imprints, downloadable sales catalogues and company news.

Both the sites were designed by Clearleft, working with developer Cognifide and content agency Echosix-River Film.