Background

Since its first edition in 1838, The Times of India has been the oldest, largest selling and among the most influential English-language daily newspapers in India. The paper detected a stagnant or falling readership of some of its pages. It was perceived as having an excess of negative news; and that valuable stories were insufficiently highlighted.

Strategy

The first step was to study all the pages across the week in detail. We also worked with the editorial team to appreciate their perceptions and self-diagnoses. Our recommendations took two main forms: to make individual, valuable stories stand out, and to sharpen the presentation of graphics. We would not aim to alter layouts or typography, but design devices to ‘mark up’ the stories, telling the reader why they deserved her attention.

In doing these, we took into account the reader of city pages, to pitch the stories as essential reading. Connecting the stories to her daily life become part of our conversation with the team. Our task would be to tap her sense of dissatisfaction or celebrate the progress of city projects. Are the city’s landfills even worse? Is that old case of school admissions finally reaching a conclusion?

Solutions

Story devices ICD created a family of visually related devices which can engage the reader’s attention at a glance. These would provide many “points of entry” into the page.

Headline slugs categorized ‘good news’ or ‘bad news’. In addition to the red and green scheme coding these two states, we worked with the editors to create a finite library of slug-phrases, so that readers can recognize, recall, and expect them. They enable rapid read/ignore decisions by the reader, increasing her confidence in her choices and increasing the likelihood of reading at least the headline or the graphic.

Quotes were reshaped to visually reflect multiple and opposing views. Timelines and Cause and effect sequences, Pro and Con formats all pit contrary points of view and demonstrate the richness of the content.

Counters track and record the key statistics that  are of interest to readers. With appropriate labelling, these can compensate for short public memory.

Masthead We redesigned a series of masheads for everyday as well as for special days. By utilising the titloing area, our solution turns the masthead into an informative,living entity that’s as engaging as any story. It has a cheerful, positive and busy ambience.

Result

Taken together, these interventions result in pages that are ‘seen’ before they are ‘read’. In a glanceable way,  graphic devices that signal pleasure or threat compel her attention in a painless way.