Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin reading the redesigned businessline. Photo The Hindu
The Hindu Group’s flagship brands The Hindu and businessline now sport a new look with sharper story packaging, enhanced visual design, and reader-friendly features. The new design will amplify the reading experience and bring it closer to its readers, the publication said in a statement.
The Hindu‘s increased font size, promo panels, bigger pictures, bolder typefaces, comprehensive story packages, breathable page layouts, story highlighters, and gist reads will ensure a seamless reading experience. QR codes and digitally integrated navigation pointers will help readers identify multi-media content such as online stories, interviews, videos, and podcasts.
Talking about The Hindu redesign, editor Suresh Nambath said, “Clean. Sharp. Bold. These words describe not only the look and style of The Hindu, its appearance and form, but also its core philosophy, its Code of Editorial Values: the integrity in both editorial and business functions.”
businessline‘s contemporary new logo is said to match the spirit of a daring, young, and vibrant nation. The redesign draws parallel to the new age of business. Text and visuals are blended to carry out storytelling in the same intuitive way in which readers communicate via text messaging.
businessline’s editor Raghuvir Srinivasan said, “Starting today, businessline will sport a new, cheerful look to keep up with the times. While it turns trendy, the newspaper will remain a hardnosed business, financial and economic daily.
The Hindu Group’s CEO LV Navaneeth said, “The new look will redefine the art of newspaper reading. It is tailored to the wants and needs of the digital-savvy generation. Our objective behind the redesign is simple — give readers the same experience as that of using a digital news product.”
The makeover was crafted by Mario Garcia, the Cuban-American newspaper designer and editorial consultant who has worked for publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and New Straits Times. Garcia had also redesigned the Delhi-based Hindustan Times.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
