The Hindu Business Line : Frontline gets more contemporary look

NEWER LOOK: The West Bengal Governor, Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi, releasing the redesigned Frontline in the presence of (from left) Prof S.P. Thyagarajan, Vice-Chancellor, University of Madras, Dr Mario Garcia of Garcia Media, and Mr N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, at a function in Chennai on Thursday. — Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai , March 2

The West Bengal Governor, Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi, on Thursday released the redesigned Frontline, the fortnightly news magazine from the publishers of The Hindu, in the presence of academics, intelligentsia, political leaders and industry captains. He handed over the first copy to the Madras University Vice-Chancellor, Dr S.P. Thyagarajan.

Garcia Media, led by Dr Mario Garcia, has redesigned Frontline, the fourth publication from the group to have gone through a comprehensive make over by this world renowned newspaper design company.

The purpose of the redesign is to offer readers a more modern, structured, accessible, newsy, interesting and elegant magazine. The highlights of the new design are: a strikingly pure Black-on-White logo; elegant new fonts; improved navigation and layering; structuring and demarcation of the magazine's various sections; a fine balance between words, photographs, infographics, maps and fact boxes; use of white space to ensure readability; a sophisticated nine-colour palette dominated by Frontline red; and colour coding of the distinctive sections.

According to Dr Mario Garcia, the redesign preserves the history of Frontline while giving it a more contemporary look, one which a new generation of readers would come to experiment.

Paying glowing tributes to the distinctive role being played by Frontline, the West Bengal Governor wanted the redesigned magazine to laugh, now and then - at "others' follies and yourself." He also wanted the magazine to share its space sometimes with people from "the other side" - that is, giving space to counter opinions. It should remember that "your predecessor of a fortnight ago" was short of design, but not short of personality; it lacked slickness but had persona. This was exactly what he hoped the new look magazine would continue to have.

While other magazines could pulp leisure and indoor lifestyles, Frontline should choose the road less travelled by and never cease to do what it was good at — dissent, Mr Gandhi said.

Over the years, the Governor said Frontline had found a way of reading facts, sharing them with its readers without leaving any toxins in the system, which in itself was a rare achievement. The magazine was undoubtedly one of the most meticulously researched non-academic journal, he said and wondered whether any other publication pursued issues with such dogged determination as Frontline did.

Tracing the magazine's growth, Mr N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, Frontline, said that at a time when magazines tended increasingly to go for subjects relating to lifestyle and leisure, Frontline remained focussed on issues that affected the lives of a large number of people in India, in neighbouring countries, and in the rest of the world.

In the two decades since its launch, Frontline had evolved into a critical magazine with a focus on politics, domestic and international, and on socio-economic, development, deprivation-related, and people-centred issues. It had also covered a range of subjects, including science and science policy as well as books, literature, music and the arts.

Mr Ram said the magazine aimed to offer in-depth, insightful, forward-looking coverage of issues and events at the local, regional, national and international levels. It had an investigative and analytical orientation and a deep interest in ideas, movements and trends. It tried to develop and present articles that aimed to be analyses, or descriptive analyses, of issues, without losing a current news content or topicality.

He said that the magazine aimed to cover world affairs in a more detailed, nuanced and sustained manner than other news-related periodicals. "Our working approach in this respect is to move beyond bilateral issues involving India and to provide a continuing focus on international concerns."

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