By Rafiq Barak

As someone who is into design, for me the way things look is very, very important. Thankfully, in the last two decades or so, Indian media companies have started concentrating on the look-and-feel of their properties. Remember Doordarshan… it appears now that no one was really bothered. The news background, the ‘Rukawat ke liye khed hai’ announcements were all-so-pedestrian.

Most newspapers too didn’t care too much design, and it was left to the magazines to offer jobs to art directors. Things changed dramatically from the early 1990s, as competition grew stiffer.

And it’s interesting to see design virtually driving content, along with advertisers who have grabbed the opportunity to play around in the hitherto-sacrosanct editorial space.

At MxMIndia, I am happy to see a fair amount of importance given to design. Our homepage is clutter-free, with very easy navigation. Although it’s an internet news portal, the approach is magazine-ish. Every morning, or the evening before, we work on the Big Story image. Often there is no clear visual possible. It’s tough, it’s fun. Like the life and times we live in.