Masterpage turns 30

Blog 1 of 30

Today, Masterpage turns 30. Who or what is Masterpage?

Even those of you who know me best, probably don’t know that Masterpage is the name of the company I set up in 1992. Under that banner I did content writing, communication consultancy, marketing consultancy and even today my range of traditional games from Kreeda works under the banner of Masterpage.

I was wondering today, is Masterpage a success? I don’t have the answers for it. Looked at in purely business terms with bottom lines and profits and balance sheets, it is probably not. But in many ways Masterpage did and continues to do what I set out to do in the first place. It has been the banner under which I have had the space for creativity and a different 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.

Undoubtedly the projects I did under Masterpage, provided me with financial support over the years. But to me, more importantly, it gave me so much more – it gave me an identity, and a 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. So, I look back today, and I judge Masterpage not in merely business and monetary terms but as an idea, as a space and as a creative environment to learn and grow.

As a woman in the 1990s, work from home was unheard of, flexi hours were unheard of and Masterpage allowed me to balance home and career. It allowed me to work from home long before it became the norm of the day. It allowed me to be flexible and merge my personal and professional life so that I could have the best of both worlds.

Today, to many Masterpage may sound like the silly fantasy of a young mother. But to me, or someone like me, who longed to have time with the family, yet yearned for a career that one can look back on with pride, Masterpage becomes very symbolic.

The name came from the Adobe Pagemaker software and referred to the page that carried all the elements that would need to reflect on the inner pages of the document. It was a template of sorts and in that sense Masterpage has been true to its name. The elements in it, the ideas and values that evolved there were to impact my life in the years to come.

I would like to share some of these stories with a sense of nostalgia and amusement and with a sense of pride. As a tribute to 30 years of Masterpage, I will be sharing 30 blogs starting today. Read it, laugh at it, share it… and as you do that you may see things through my eyes.

Beyond all else I share this with the hope that somewhere some young girl believes, like I did, that you can have a family and career; that someone believes like I did that you can do anything you set out to do as long as you work for it. For that is the story of Masterpage.