Masterpage has been the banner under which I have had the space for creativity and a different kind of thinking, a space to explore numerous ideas, projects, and interests.
It has been a banner under which I have experimented with styles of working, with values and principles in the business world. It has been a banner under which I have grown as an individual, as a person, and as a professional.
It gave me an identity, and space; it gave me the freedom to be creative, to be a maverick when it suited me, helped me work with a wide range of people and in some way bring some impact to the world around me.
That is the story of Masterpage
Vinita Sidhartha
Founder, Masterpage.
What is Masterpage?
Masterpage is a content development firm established in 1992, in the city of Chennai. It is the brainchild of Vinita Sidhartha, a graduate in Journalism from The University of Texas at Austin. The purpose of Masterpage was to provide research driven content written in readable, comfortable and simple English, supported by creative design and concepts to specific target audiences.
About Vinita Sidhartha -
the Founder
Vinita Sidhartha was raised in a traditional family and the interaction with her grandparents, uncles and aunts let a deep impact on her and an understanding for Indian cultural traditions.
She has a degree in Journalism and Communication from the University of Texas at Austin, USA. On her return to India, she set up Masterpage – a communications consultancy in content development where she had leading clients from the corporate and media sectors. A mother of two children, she turned to her grandmother for baby siting support when the children were growing up. Her grandmother in turn spent hours with the children teaching them a number of traditional Indian games. These helped to pass the game and bridged an 80-year gap. The children enjoyed these games immensely.
Watching her children play traditional games, Vinita got greatly fascinated by the subject. The personal and the professional merged with Vinita finding a deep interest in researching traditional games, not only to teach her children but also to revive them. Thus, was born Kreeda in 2002, meaning play in Sanskrit – an organisation that works to research, retail and revive traditional games and the spirit in which they were played.
Vinita also uses her communication skills for development and change and has served with leading international NGOs such as the Heroes Project (Richard Gere Foundation), Save the Children, Population Services International and Care India. She also consults with a number of other grass root NGOs working on subjects such as women’s empowerment, child labour, child trafficking, education, special children, craft preservation and environment.
In this capacity she developed, masterminds, and leads the Petralthan Pillaiya Trust (www.ptptrust.org) with the support of Hello FM a leading radio station in Tamil Nadu and Kamal Haasan the leading actor to support children with HIV.
Vinita is also a Director in Power Centre Private Limited (www.powercen.com), a Microsoft Partner and an IT solutions company, where she handles the Marketing and HR functions.
What does Masterpage do?
While content development is a buzz word today, Masterpage was ahead of its time providing research driven content to a wide cross section of clients including corporate houses, NGOs, educational institutions, advertising agencies and media.
In the early 90’s, corporate newsletters were a large part of an organization’s internal communications. Masterpage made a foray into this space, providing editorial support to organizations. In addition to newsletters, Masterpage provided content development and design for brochures, leaflets, websites, logos, and more for several organizations between the years 1992 and 2002.
The Masterpage Culture
The Masterpage Culture – Masterpage was a pioneer in many ways. In the early days, the organization was run on a job-sharing basis with all employees being part-time women.
In the early nineties, part time and freelance work was unheard of, so many capable and intelligent women stayed home. The purpose of Masterpage was to provide these women a place to work during the hours that suited them and even provided them a place to bring their children. This innovative idea by Vinita Sidhartha enabled many women to enter the workplace, and the confidence they gained here helped them go on to pursue other opportunities.
Vinita has written about the journey of Masterpage and the challenges she faced in her blog
Our Clients
In the Content Development Phase
In the years 1992 – 2002 Vinita Sidhartha backed by the team at Masterpage worked with clients across corporate organisations, hospitals, NGO, advertising agencies and media
- Sankara Nethralaya
- Sriram Group of Companies
- Rotork Controls
- Sterling Resorts
- Citibank
- Hindustan Lever Limited
- Amalgamations Group
- Murugappa Group – Cholamandalam Investments
- Indian Additives Ltd.
- Transworld Group of Companies
- The Hindu
- Times of India
The Development Sector
Vinita Sidhartha believed that the communication expertise of Masterpage should be used to give something back to society. From 1995, she shifted the focus to working with the development sector. She herself worked as a consultant for numerous years, curating projects and campaigns for a number of international and local NGOs. She was ably backed by the creative team from Masterpage in all her efforts. Among the NGOs were:
Heroes Project
(An initiative by Parameshwar Godrej and Richard Gere)
Worked with numerous stakeholders in the media and entertainment industry to conceptualize a series of initiatives to address information dissemination about HIV/AIDs and related concerns.
- A radio campaign on HIV featuring numerus celebrities in Chennai
- A series of awareness sessions with stake holders in the film and entertainment industry across Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Karnataka.
- A Round Table session in Bangalore with stake holders from the corporate, media and development sectors chaired by Richard Gere to tackle HIV/AIDS concerns in the state of Karnataka
- Partnering the government and celebrities to curate a pledge taking to support the rights of people living with HIV
Population Services International
- Stablished and run the Saadhan helpline for HIV/AIDS with corporate support and partnerships
- Curated a comprehensive package called Unravelling HIV/AIDS to enable organizations to disseminate information, conduct events and increase awareness on HIV/AIDS
- Initiated and ran the widely successful radio campaign in partnership with Hello FM and iconic actor Kamal Haasan to raise funds for children with HIV.
- Created a series of campaigns and programmes under the banner Wish to Quit for a Tobacco Quitline in partnership with the American Cancer Society
Population Services International
- Stablished and run the Saadhan helpline for HIV/AIDS with corporate support and partnerships
- Curated a comprehensive package called Unravelling HIV/AIDS to enable organizations to disseminate information, conduct events and increase awareness on HIV/AIDS
- Initiated and ran the widely successful radio campaign in partnership with Hello FM and iconic actor Kamal Haasan to raise funds for children with HIV.
- Created a series of campaigns and programmes under the banner Wish to Quit for a Tobacco Quitline in partnership with the American Cancer Society
Petralthan Pillaiya Trust
Conceptualised and managed an NGO working with HIV positive children to support counselling and higher education. This was started as a project undrr Population Services International and spun off into a separate NGO. This required design and creative thinking not merely in communication but to chart the entire journey of the NGO, plan its activities, charter its growth and structure the processes. Although this was the brainchild of Vinita Sidhartha, the Masterpage team was completely involved in its journey and activities.
Other NGOs
Care India
- Organized a series of seminars on the rights of women in the workplace in partnership with UN Women.
- Organized a series of awareness programs and discussion in corporate houses on fair and treatment of women, sexual harassment etc.
Save the Children
- Worked with celebrities to draw awareness to the struggles of children involved in domestic child labour and child trafficking.
Sugun Thomas Foundation
- Helped plan communication protocols both internally and externally with stakeholders to ensure the smooth running of the Trust.
A Full Circle Back to the Corporate Sector
Masterpage continues to provide content, design and communication consultancy to its sister concerns – Power Centre Services Pvt. Ltd. – an organization involved in the sale and service of diesel generators and Power Centre Pvt. Ltd., a leading IT solutions provider and a Microsoft Partner based in Chennai. The team provides end-to-end communication support across all aspects of the organization.
Special Projects
A Series on Wedding Customs of India
While design was a strong support to the activities of Masterpage, its greatest strength lay in developing content based on strong research fundamentals. This led to a number of exciting projects including a series of articles for The Hindu on wedding customs of India. These articles ran in the years 2001 – 2003.
A Series on Traditional Games
A series of articles in The Hindu Young World supplement on traditional games of India was to be a turning point in the journey of this boutique firm. The research into traditional games captured the fancy of Vinita Sidhartha. This coupled with the response to the articles resulted in the decision to move away from content creation and instead focus on the revival of traditional games.
The Birth of Kreeda
In 2002, the Vinita Sidhartha came up with the idea of researching and reviving traditional games of India. This effort was branded Kreeda meaning play in Sanskrit. With its trademark logo and 28 games in the market, Kreeda is a much-loved brand in the world of traditional games. As one of the leaders in creating exquisitely designed board games which are global in quality and Indian in spirit, Kreeda has established a vast following and a marketplace of its own.
While Kreeda proved a turning point for Masterpage and shifted focus from the content development business, the expertise was to prove useful in developing the fledgling brand.
To read about Kreeda
