The Financial Times today announces the launch of the FT’s How To Spend It magazine’s standalone website, www.howtospendit.com. The website launch coincides with the 15th Anniversary of How To Spend It and will carry the core values of the luxury lifestyle magazine into a highly innovative and visually stunning digital format and will be publicly available on 3 October.

Like the magazine, the website will feature intelligent, provocative and witty content marrying British eccentricities with a sophisticated global outlook. And, like the magazine, it will exude glamour, elegance and individuality, while manifesting the Financial Times’ core values of integrity and quality.

The Howtospendit.com editorial team will be led by award-winning How To Spend It editor Gillian de Bono who has been with the magazine since 1994. She says: “How To Spend It set the benchmark for luxury lifestyle magazines 15 years ago and now we want to establish the brand as the benchmark for luxury lifestyle websites too. To this end, the print and online operations are fully integrated, produced and edited by a single in-house team using the same top tier writers, photographers and illustrators.”

How To Spend It’s design partners for the website are award-winning international agency Razorfish. Employing industry-leading technologies such as Adobe Flash 10, the design team has created a website that translates the glossy magazine reading experience into a convincing luxury online environment. Stand-out features include a unique 3D viewing format, innovative page scrolling and effortless browsing.

In addition to editorial content from the four most recent print editions, the website will feature exclusive online content including:

·Van der postings – grande dame of luxury Lucia van der Post will be rejoining the magazine as its new star columnist and posting thrice weekly updates exclusive to howtospendit.com.

·The Aesthete – a new magazine column featuring a roll call of the world’s true tastemakers will have extended interviews exclusive to howtospendit.com

·Technopolis TV – Jonathan Margolis will take his magazine column to the internet with weekly video bulletins from the world of gadgets and technology.

·The Reconnoisseur – daily insider intelligence from How To Spend It’s top contributors.

·Gift Guide – launching in November, this will be updated with glamorous and clever gifts on a daily basis.

·Mulitmedia – Videos of the magazine’s most visually compelling features, including a behind-the-scenes video of an underwater fashion shoot

Howtospendit.com has been designed to create a compelling luxury environment for high-end advertisers, with a range of display options plus rich microsite brand hubs. Launch sponsors include Rolex, Krug and Harry Winston.

“The advertising challenge for howtospendit.com was to provide formats large enough and sophisticated enough that the world’s most aspirational brands look as good on the screen as they do in print,’ said Dominique Moseley, magazine and luxury publishing director at the FT. “The interest we’ve had at launch illustrates that we have built a website that meets luxury advertisers’ specific requirements.”

- Ends -

The Financial Times, one of the world’s leading business news organisations, is recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. Providing extensive news, comment and analysis, the newspaper is printed at 23 print sites across the globe, has a daily circulation of 395,845 (ABC figures, August, 2009) and a readership of 1.3 million people worldwide. FT.com is the definitive home for business intelligence on the web, providing an essential source of news, comment, data and analysis for the global business community. FT.com attracts 11.4 million unique users, generating 83.2 million page views (ABCe figures, March 2009) and now has over 1.4 million registered users.

Kristina Eriksson, Financial Times, +44 20 7873 4961 or kristina.eriksson@ft.com
Drew Benvie, 33 Digital, +44 (0) 20 7608 2500 or ft.com@33-digital.com

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don’t cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.