HT Genius Highlights-The Magazine Making Workshop

 

HT Genius-The Magazine Making Workshop

 

The Hindustan Times conducted its 3rd edition of ‘HT Genius Highlights-The Magazine Making Workshop’ on Friday, 04^th August 2023 from 10:30 am to 1:00 pm. It was conducted at the Hindustan Times Office, HT House at Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Connaught Place, New Delhi.

HT School organized a Magazine-Making Workshop for students of class 8^th to 12^th. The 2 hours workshop was conducted by the veteran resource person, Ms. Monica Gupta, an Art Director, HT Media working with the Hindustan Times with an experience of two decades. She has worked with various newspapers and magazines over the years and in her last big project, she was part of the team that redesigned Hindustan Times.

The workshop was attended by Maanikya Singh of Class-12C, the President of Editorial Board of Student Council and Mrinal Rawat of Class-11A the Vice President of Editorial Board of Student Council. They were accompanied by Mrs. Nita Pathak, the Head of English Department. The workshop was attended by over 20 students from schools of Delhi & NCR including Apeejay School, Saket, Sadhu Vaswani School, Moti Bagh, Seth Anand Ram Jaipuria School, Vasundhara, Sapphire School, Delhi, etc.

The session commenced with highlighting the transformation in the Hindustan Times over the years and the process. The workshop was based on the five principles of designing: nameplate, colour, font, grid and structure. Ms. Monica Gupta emphasized on being consistent with the nameplate and sticking to the same family font. She advised students’ designers to choose a colour and play with its hues. In order to encourage students to experiment with creative writing and layout, the students were introduced to the basics of visual design and the components that make up the look and feel of a media format like a magazine or a newsletter.  

She took examples from an article in HT to explain the key components of laying out a story on the page: Headline, byline, introduction, body copy, images and captions. She elaborated, “For instance, your school has certain values and your magazine must reflect that spirit. Remember design language can change as you move from page to page.”

The students were excited to receive hands-on training. Some of the attending students already held editorial positions in their respective school magazines/publications. As a result, they came armed with specific questions pertaining to layout and design. The workshop focused on how to make magazine design and layout step-by-step. The fundamental concept introduced by Gupta was that design was subjective and there wasn’t a strict formula to it yet there were rules that one needed to abide by. At the same time, she informed students about the need to not be arbitrary in design decisions. She followed this up by asking students to be cognizant of their target audience as well as the format or purpose of the publication. The students asked multiple questions particularly related to the relationship between font and colour in design. She highlighted the need to experiment, diversify and find their voice by not hesitating to explore new ideas and avenues. 

It was a highly informative and interactive workshop. The workshop ended with students asking their doubts and questions about how to make their magazine better with corrections. It was indeed a very fruitful workshop as student editors got a lot to learn from the reputed organization to be better editors, planners and designers.