TORONTO—To promote the release of award-winning author Margaret Atwood’s upcoming book, The Year of the Flood, design studio Scott Thornley + Company has created a new website. The site, designed by Scott Thornley and Carmen Serravalle, was designed to emphasize the strong environmental themes in Atwood’s novel.

“She has created a heightened sensibility in the book of everything in the natural world,” Thornley says. “She wanted a site that would represent that but she also wanted to move it beyond being just about the book.”

Working with Atwood, STC created an interactive website with links to three countries: Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. According to Thornley, it will soon include a link for users from Germany. The design studio worked with MetaWave, who developed the frame for the website.

The site includes various interactive elements: STC added the One Minute Calculator (calculate your carbon footprint), the Enroll a Saint page (nominate someone for “sainthood” and donate to a cause) and the “God’s Gardener” YouTube hymn challenge (users upload videos of themselves performing the hymns from Atwood’s book). Also on the site is information on Atwood’s book tour, reviews and background on hymns written for the book and set to music.

Thornley himself drew the images that appear on the hemp T-shirts and tote bags related to the book. His earthy photographs, with saturated colours, also appear in the background of every page on the site.

The website is just one aspect of an elaborate promotional tour for The Year of the Flood, which will be available Sept. 8. Atwood has written an hour-long theatrical performance with an original score and each stop on her tour will use local actors and choirs as she travels across Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Sweden. Contact: www.yearoftheflood.com; www.stcworks.ca