At a time when consumers are exposed to beautifully crafted products from around the world, the first object Indians pick up every morning is The Daily Shame. Barring the odd exception, most Indian newspapers in every language look like a dog’s meal—a mishmash of leftovers of all colours, shapes and sizes with barely any clarity…
Tag Archives: Mario Garcia
A new design for the ‘Hindustan Times’ from the Mario Garcia factory, which would have apparently “made Mahatma Gandhi proud”
There is a story, probably an apocryphal one, that when Hindustan Times owner Shobhana Bhartia told an American designer who had designed The Washington Post, that she wanted a “good-looking paper”, he is believed to have retorted: “For that you need good-looking ads.” Mario Garcia, the designer who has had a hand in pouring old…
“I keep hearing about the problems media organisations and journalists have undergone [in the Modi era], but the truth is I never faced one: Mukund Padmanabhan on editing ‘The Hindu’
The change of editorship at Indian media houses is (usually) a sinister cloak-and-dagger affair, done in the dead of night sans any grace. Publishers rarely ever feel the need to inform readers why Editor X has left or why Editor Y has come in. Not so, The Hindu. Three months ago, the “Mountroad Mahavishnu” announced…
Hindu Business Line redesigned by Aurobind Patel
In its 20th year of publication, Business Line, the business daily from The Hindu stable, has gone in for a relaunch, accompanied by a redesign. In the image above are the front pages of the paper the day before (left) the new design (right) was unveiled on Thursday, January 23. Writes BL editor Mukund Padmanabhan…
10 reasons why ‘The Hindu’ returned to its past
N. Ram, chairman of Kasturi & Sons Limited and the former editor of The Hindu, on why the “family” reverted to its past after a brief flirtation with “professionals”, in an interview with Shougat Dasgupta of Tehelka: “Editorialising in news reports, editorialising in the guise of news, which is strictly prohibited by the binding code…
‘The Hindu redesign was a mishmash, an eyesore’
The Spanish designer Mario Garcia (in picture, right), who redesigned The Hindu eight years ago before it was “abandoned” by Siddharth Vardarajan upon his appointment as editor, has opened a dialogue with the Madras-based paper now that the 2005 redesign has been restored following the return of the “family” to the helm. Garcia, who is reputed…
‘Hindu family’ chucks out ‘professional’ redesign
Four days after The Hindu board summarily decided to pause its ongoing “professionalisation” process, the Mount Road Mahavishnu has reverted to its previous design, as promised by chairman N. Ram in a tweet (below). On the left (top) is the October 21 issue, the last with Varadarajan at the helm, and on the right is…
A Spanish hand behind a Malayalam newspaper
The Malayalam daily Malayala Manorama has unveiled a new look. The redesign has been done by Errea Commuications, the design house of the Spanish designer Javier Errea. Image: courtesy Newspaper Design Also read: Another boilerplate redesign from Mario Garcia Also read: In its golden jubilee year, ET gets a redesign Good heavens, another Mario Garcia…
South meets North: ‘Deccan Herald’ now in Delhi
Karnataka’s oldest English newspaper, Deccan Herald, has made a brave northwards foray with the launch of its New Delhi edition on 11 December 2011, 100 years after political power moved to the national capital from the east. Vol 1, No 1 of the 63-year-old Bangalore daily arrived this morning in the usual quiet, understated manner…
Coming soon: ‘Deccan Herald’ from New Delhi
Bangalore’s oldest English newspaper, Deccan Herald, is launching an edition in New Delhi, making it the first South Indian publication to reach out to readers and advertisers in the North with a decidedly South Indian title. There has been no formal announcement from the family-owned group yet, but the buzz is that the edition may…
Another boilerplate redesign from Mario Garcia
Hindustan, the Hindi newspaper owned by the Hindustan Times group, has undergone a redesign in its 75th year. On top is the relaunch edition with the new design by Mario Garcia; below is yesterday’s front page, with an anchor story heralding the new design. Hindustan Times had been redesigned by the same designer in July…
In its golden jubilee year, ET gets a new design
Quietly, almost as if it doesn’t want anybody to notice, India’s oldest and largest business paper,The Economic Times, has undergone a redesign. On top is the front page of the launch issue of the paper in its new avatar (Monday, 14 February 2011) and below is the paper from exactly a week before. The pagination…
15 things you didn’t know about K.M. Mathew
The passing away of the doyen of Malayalam journalism, Kandathil Mammen Mathew, better known as K.M. Mathew, on Sunday has resulted in a rare outpouring of coverage, with Indian media proprietors burying their usual pettiness about competitors to salute one of their own. So much so that the news of the death of the chief…
How come Mario Garcia didn’t redesign this one?
Vijaya Karnataka, the largest selling Kannada newspaper owned by The Times of India group and edited by Visweshwar Bhat, has undergone a redesign. Above is the front page of the first edition of the relaunched issue; below is yesterday’s front page. This is the second revamp of the paper after ToI acquired the Bangalore-based paper…
Good heavens, yet another Mario Garcia redesign
In a nation of a billion (plus a few hundred million) people, in the outsourcing capital of the world, Indian publishers continue to face enormous trouble in finding a designer with a pulse on local tastes to redesign their products. And the only name on the speeddial of otherwise extremely stingy proprietors—be it in the…
Yet another paper redesigned by Mario Garcia
India’s second-largest English language daily newspaper, the 85-year-old Hindustan Times, has a new look from today, with new fonts, new layouts and a new masthead. The new design, by Mario Garcia, is “benchmarked to the best international standards”, writes editor-in-chief Sanjoy Narayan in his introductory note. “You’re holding the future in your hands,” Narayan writes.…
Finally, a redesign not done by Mario Garcia
With competition in the air, Deccan Herald, Bangalore’s oldest English newspaper and one of India’s few single-city newspapers, has undergone a complete design overhaul. On the left is DH of Friday, 6 March 2009; on the right is Saturday’s redesigned paper. The man behind the redesign is Palmer Watson, the head of an international design…
Old habits die hard for a ‘new’ newspaper?
Sakaal Times, the English newspaper owned by Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar‘s nephew Abhijit Pawar, designed by Mario Garcia with former Times of India editor Dileep Padgaonkar playing a key editorial role, has run into trouble less than a fortnight after its launch in Poona. The blog Pen Pricks has detected plagiarisation of content in…
The greatgrandmother of all newspaper battles
ARVIND SWAMINATHAN writes from Madras: “Unprecedented” is the most misused and abused word in Indian journalism. Anything—almost everything—that the desk couldn’t check if it had happened before, is effortlessly slapped with the label “unprecedented”. But 14 April 2008 will truly be an “unprecedented” day in the annals of Indian print media when the first bundle…
IJR 