Forbes India
I was fortunate to have worked with Milton Glaser and Walter Bernard on this
I was fortunate to have worked with Milton Glaser and Walter Bernard on this
When the Forbes India editor approached me to help create anew magazine the lure was irresistible. I worked closely with Milton Glaser and Walter Bernard for the initial prototype.
The structure and format to begin with was a departure from the Forbes format. This was deliberate and Milton Glaser and Walter Bernard se thigh standards. I could understand the design but the content and info graphics left me clueless. Perhaps it was my ignorance of business publishing which helped us break away from the established pattern of business stories. We experimented with visual led stories and graphic stories. I couldn't ignore my advertising background and also tried to create visual properties like the richest Indians and investment special covers where we would just play with the colors for the next couple of years.
The magazine was structured to start with short snappy and easy ready reading before going into the heavier and longer well stories before ending up in a lighter and more relaxed note with shorter easier reading again.
It was very hectic because I didn’t and still don’ t understand business but we worked around that by deciding to focus on the drama of business and looking at unusual angles and story telling formats.
Most of these had a very short turnaround time and the budgets were almost non existent. I usually had 7-10 days between briefing and printing for the whole issue of approximately 120 pages and this included the cover also. The schedules were so bad that I never got the chance of proofing.
I hit on the idea of using graphic stories for abstract philosophies and ideas which turned very successful but its very difficult pulling them off. Most writers don’t think pictures and tend to write continuous text and most art people don’t think words. I believe Forbes US has started using graphic stories as a format now
The structure and format to begin with was a departure from the Forbes format. This was deliberate and Milton Glaser and Walter Bernard se thigh standards. I could understand the design but the content and info graphics left me clueless. Perhaps it was my ignorance of business publishing which helped us break away from the established pattern of business stories. We experimented with visual led stories and graphic stories. I couldn't ignore my advertising background and also tried to create visual properties like the richest Indians and investment special covers where we would just play with the colors for the next couple of years.
The magazine was structured to start with short snappy and easy ready reading before going into the heavier and longer well stories before ending up in a lighter and more relaxed note with shorter easier reading again.
It was very hectic because I didn’t and still don’ t understand business but we worked around that by deciding to focus on the drama of business and looking at unusual angles and story telling formats.
Most of these had a very short turnaround time and the budgets were almost non existent. I usually had 7-10 days between briefing and printing for the whole issue of approximately 120 pages and this included the cover also. The schedules were so bad that I never got the chance of proofing.
I hit on the idea of using graphic stories for abstract philosophies and ideas which turned very successful but its very difficult pulling them off. Most writers don’t think pictures and tend to write continuous text and most art people don’t think words. I believe Forbes US has started using graphic stories as a format now
