In October 1934, students published the first Lakeside Tatler. A message from the year’s Headmaster Robert Simeon Adams reads in typewriter font: “I firmly believe that the Lakeside Tatler can be instrumental in building a finer Lakeside spirit … [It] will contribute increasingly to the ideals and hopes of Lakeside.” In the nearly 90 years since, the Lakeside community and its ideals and hopes have evolved exponentially. 

Tatler, our student-run paper, has changed alongside it. Surfing through our Tatler archives database, I could easily distinguish each era of the paper, as the format and design transformed from decade to decade. As early as the late ’60s, Tatler began to stray from its original look: an elegant masthead with several chunks of articles underneath. In December 1968, for the first time, the classic cover was entirely replaced with a singular image of a person with a cloak on their head. From this point on, the paper would toy with unique mastheads for each edition. They slowly consumed the front page until the ’90s, when Tatlerites finally made front pages full magazine-like covers, designed around one theme they chose to highlight throughout the issue. 

Today, Tatler is back to a design that includes a simple, consistent masthead and blocks of text previewing several articles on the first page. The rest of the pages feature well-written articles, with a weaker focus on the visuals dispersed throughout compared to past generations of Tatler.

Our design isn’t the only thing that’s changed. We no longer have a “Features” section, once filled with articles of a chosen theme. Instead, we have the “Life & Culture” section, where writers can choose to write about anything with no particular connection to the other articles in the section. This change better adheres to a typical newspaper design. 

But this year, we are hoping to return to highlighting the creativity of our staffers with the “special issue.” We will have two to three annually. Each will be printed with about eight to ten pieces, along with the monthly paper. The special issue will reimagine the paper in its past formats, particularly the style used in the 1990s to 2000s, when each issue was focused on a theme and featured a creative, matching cover page. In the past, themes ranged from back-to-school to drugs, and from religion to abortion at Lakeside. In the future, Tatler staff can choose any topic to highlight, drawn from what matters most to the current student body. 

To kick off the series, we are dedicating our first special edition as a tribute to the history of Tatler and the Tatler archives, where the idea of the special issue was born. Welcome to the special issue.