The Hindu gets a design refresh

The daily's design, packaging and content get revamped after over a decade; price in some cities also increased.

Chennai-headquartered English daily, The Hindu, has been given a design and content refresh. While the publication last had a design revamp in 2005 by artist Mario Garcia, this time around The Hindu's new look has been created by Aurobind Patel.

"We are relaunching The Hindu with the same sentiments that our founders did back in 1878 - with a strong sense of purpose to serve our readers, yet with some diffidence and hope that the indulgent public will give our offerings a warm reception and support," says Rajiv Lochan, managing director and CEO of The Hindu Group.

The Hindu's editor Mukund Padmanabhan says in a note to readers says,"From today, we bulk up by giving you more pages every week. We do this by increasing the number of base pages - dramatically on Sundays and fairly significantly on other days. " He adds, "The design has been used to communicate content rather than compete with it for attention. The effort has been to marry the two seamlessly and produce a look that favours cleanliness over clutter, an easy elegance over exaggerated effect."

After many years of being priced at Rs. 8, the Monday to Saturday issue in some cities, will now cost Rs 10 while the Sunday paper will be priced at Rs.15.

An official statement by the publication says that 'there will be more news and stories related to cinema, business, international, sports and lifestyle through the week. A single, comprehensive, all -India edition of The Hindu will be circulated in the north of the Vindhyas, coupled with supplements, Mumbai Local and Delhi Metro, carrying relevant local content in Mumbai and Delhi, respectively. In the southern cities of Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad, the MetroPlus will carry a theme every day, Monday through Friday, along with cinema content published daily.' The release adds that the themes will cater to interests such as wellness, technology, automobile, travel, food and fashion.

Other sub-brands of the paper namely the Friday Review, EducationPlus (rebranded as Edge), and DownTown will also undergo changes in design and content. For sports enthusiasts, the Saturday edition will carry two additional pages of sports news, highlighting the best sporting events to watch out for during weekends.