BALTIMORE.- Planit, the Baltimore-based marketing communications agency, today announced that it has signed a contract with The Walters Art Museum to create for the internationally recognized institution a fresh new, interactive web site that will redefine the museum's online presence. The new site is scheduled to launch in August.

The Walters joins the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts on Planit's growing list of high-profile arts and culture clients. "Planit was chosen above a number of prominent national and local agencies for both projects," said Planit President Matt Doud. "To say we are excited about the niche we are creating for ourselves in this space would be an understatement.

"Being chosen to work with what is considered by many to be one of the best art museums in the U.S., and not only that, one of Baltimore's greatest treasures, is immensely gratifying."

For The Walters, Planit has been charged with creating an online experience that engages visitors as strongly as the museum does. The new site represents the first phase of The Walters' five-year plan to have its entire collection of approximately 30,000 objects, representing 55 centuries of art, represented online.

"The inquiries we receive most often from visitors to our web site pertain to requests for more information regarding specific pieces," said C. Griffith Mann, Associate Curator, Medieval Art at The Walters. "By enhancing this portion of our web site, we will be able to share The Walters' expansive collection with students, teachers, history and art enthusiasts, and scholars from around the world."

"We will be able to serve our online visitors in entirely new ways," said Michael Smith, Director of Marketing. "Based on Planit's presentation and catalogue of work, we felt they were the best agency to handle this ambitious project."

The site will provide a much more visual presentation of The Walters' collection than is currently available online and will include hundreds of highly searchable new images as well as in-depth educational resources such as classroom curricula, lesson plans, and a variety of interactive media. Selected audio tours of the museum will also be among future additions to the web site.

The Walters attracts between 150,000 and 200,000 visitors a year, and is one of only a few museums worldwide to present a comprehensive history of art from the third millennium B.C. to the early 20th century. Among its thousands of treasures, The Walters holds the finest collection of ivories, jewelry, enamels and bronzes in America, and a spectacular reserve of illuminated manuscripts and rare books. The Walters' Egyptian, Greek and Roman, Byzantine, Ethiopian and Western medieval art collections are among the best in the nation, as are the museum's holdings of Renaissance and Asian art. Every major trend in French painting during the 19th century is represented by one or more works in The Walters' collection.