MiD DAY publishes possibly India's first handwritten front page!

The Page 1 of the Pune edition of MiD DAY, which has a wide readership in the city, was designed by a specially-commissioned calligrapher and an illustrator in collaboration with the editorial team.

The Challenge

The unique innovation was executed for Korp Pens, a leading manufacturer of writing equipment headquartered in Kolkata. One of the main challenges for any writing equipment manufacturer today is falling sales, primarily driven by the technological revolution. “The relevance of the pen is diminished,” said Lattaa Jaaiswwal, Founder, Korp Pens. “We need to bring back the warmth into writing.” 

The Solution

Innocean, Korp’s agency, teamed up with MiD Day, India’s leading English-language tabloid, to design a handwritten front page with real news content. “We are used to seeing a newspaper in various fonts, but a handwritten newspaper page? Now that would stun the paper’s readers,” said Jaaiswwal. “We hope we have brought the joy back into writing.”
Cyriac Matthew, Chief Operating Officer, MiD DAY, said: “MiD DAY has been constantly delivering marketing innovations to its readers and advertisers. With a handwritten front page, we have taken another step in pleasantly surprising our readers and also keeping our advertisers excited.”

Sachin Kalbag, Executive Editor, MiD DAY, said: “Journalists normally take a dim view of marketing innovations, but this one was good enough for the editorial team to be excited about. At MiD DAY, we break new ground every day with our investigative stories and hard-hitting news items. Today, we have done that with a collaborative Page 1.”

Vivek Srivastava, Joint MD, Innocean India, said: “Strategically, we defined the challenge as bringing to the fore the joy of writing for our consumers. It’s also about the power of bespoke expressions and the charm of writing by hand. The creative team’s effort was to give it a high impact and a larger-than-life feel. MiD DAY's out of the box image and a contemporary readership profile aptly complements the idea.”

Devendra Mehta, Senior Creative Director, Innocean India, said, “We wanted to do something unique, something never done before. The endeavour was to create a feeling of warmth and of nostalgia for the good old times, something that we lack in today's digital age, and therefore, celebrate the joy of writing.”

B. Sridhar, Group Director, Media Services, Innocean, said: “We are thankful to MiD DAY for having partnered with us in co-creating a first of its kind media innovation. The fact that MiD DAY saw value in this endeavour is really appreciated.”