The Award Winning "AMETRICA!" Campaign Is Now in Print

The United States is the last industrial nation clinging to an outdated measurement system in an age of global metric exchange. Originally conceived as a thesis project for a Master's Degree in Design by Amy Wang, Ametrica! has been gathering momentum and recognition as public awareness campaign to improve the industrial competitiveness of the United States through the adoption of the metric system.

Ametrica! won the top honors in the 2006 Adobe Design Achievement Awards. This recognition led to exhibitions in Toronto, Philadelphia and at the Sundance Film Festival. Most recently, a grant from Sappi's "Ideas That Matter" international competition has allowed for an extension of the program into a book.

"No one thinks about an act as routine as measuring, much less the impact it can have on education, economy, and health," observes Amy Wang. Through bold numbers and subtle humor, viewers are initially invited to interact with the pieces and their environment such that they experience metric units directly, rather than through comparison with customary units (which perpetuate the problem of dependency on the old units). Those intrigued by the issue are then directed to visit the Ametrica! website at www.ametrica.info.

Now, through the availability of a high quality color book printed by Toppan, the Ametrica! message will reach more people. Before Congress can successfully establish a legal transition to the metric system, and industry can put metric into practice, Ametrica! will help show the American public how simple it will be to adopt what every other nation in the world has.


About Amy Wang
The creative force behind the Ametrica! campaign, Amy Wang measures her fevers in Celsius, a remnant of her childhood in Taiwan and the Dominican Republic. Since moving to New York, she has become quite at home in inches and pounds, but nowadays stumbles in ordinary conversation with her friends, who are from around the world. Her disgruntlement is further aggravated by her undergraduate experience - she studied biology at Harvard University, conducting research in metric units. As a former science and current design student, an American as well as an immigrant, Amy could not help being utterly drawn to the Ametrica! project.


About Sappi
Through the Ideas that Matter program, Sappi funds projects designed on a pro bono basis for 501(c) 3 organizations. Projects are judged and funded annually awarding grants up to $50,000 per project. While design is an important facet of the projects chosen for funding the judges also review projects to see how many lives they touch, how well thought out the implementation plan is, and what impact the project will have. (Find out more about the program by visiting: Sappi Web Site)


About Toppan
Toppan is the world's leading and largest print communications company, with seven divisional operations extending to securities and cards, commercial printing, publications printing, packaging, industrial materials, electronics, and business forms. Toppan's US headquarters is located in Midtown Manhattan with a production facility conveniently located in Somerset, New Jersey.