WhatCar

WhatCar is a smaller brand than AutoCar India and is positioned as the ultimate guide for car buyers. We went over 30 back issues for a thorough post-mortem to understand what worked and what did not. We believed that automobiles are intrinsically engineered to look slick, sexy, and polished. The magazine needed to reflect that. The content flow needed to be restructured to make for easy and fluid reading, just like driving a car. Every driver follows a step-by-step method of driving. We needed to bring that into the magazine.

The editors agreed to change the structure and sequence of stories and do a redesign with overtones of the existing design. We restructured the content with restrictions on word count for headlines, straps, and text. Some of the information was culled out of this text, formatted in boxes, and packed with information to help the reader in the buying process.

It not only made the narrative easier to read but also highlighted information that was useful to the reader. It also provided an extra entry point for a casual reader. We created and introduced new sections that were more visual and easier to read and digest. This was to help the reader navigate through the ever-increasing amount of information without intimidating him.

We altered the format of the magazine and discreetly introduced white space, which is synonymous with luxury and aesthetics—something that is still aspirational and a strong reason for most car buyers.

The result was a voice that was authoritative yet friendly, sleek and elegant yet inviting, luxurious yet warm and friendly—exactly what the publishers wanted. And a template that was a plug-and-play format because these 100–120 pages were to be executed and sent to print in 5-7 days.