INDIANAPOLIS — The Saturday Evening Post, a centuries-old publication that helped make illustrator Norman Rockwell a household name and showcased some of America's greatest writers, is returning to its roots to show readers the value of a quiet read in an increasingly frenetic digital age.

A redesign launching with its July/August issue combines the Post's hallmarks — art and fiction — with folksy commentary and health articles. The revamped Post promises a more relaxing option for people who are used to doing much of their reading online, or are simply tired of special-interest magazines crammed into tight niches.

"There is a void of magazines now that do emphasize art and creative writing and fiction," Publisher Joan SerVaas said.

But industry experts say the Post — which traces its origins to Benjamin Franklin, though it had a hiatus from 1969 to 1971 — risks alienating its core readers while trying to buck a decadeslong shift away from general-interest magazines.

WIDER AUDIENCE

"The Saturday Evening Post is no longer my father's magazine; it's my grandfather's magazine," said Samir A. Husni, who publishes an annual guide to consumer magazines as director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi.

Although the Post is making concessions to the digital age with weekly Web site updates and a profile on Facebook, Husni said those efforts could shatter the habits of longtime readers without necessarily drawing new ones.

"Reading the magazine from A to Z should be a complete experience that I don't need to go some other place to fulfill that experience," he said.

And Husni warned the changes to the print edition might come across to longtime readers as a lesser version of what the Post was.

The magazine, whose circulation peaked at 6 million in 1960, now has 350,000 subscribers, most of whom are women over 45. That's low compared to the general interest, health and lifestyle magazines with which it competes, such as Prevention, which has a circulation of 3.3 million.

OTHERS HAVE TRIED

Many publications have tried new approaches amid advertising and circulation challenges in a digital age. The large-format Rolling Stone shrank to standard magazine size last year, in part to help boost single-copy sales because it now fits better on magazine racks. TV Guide, meanwhile, grew into a full-size magazine in 2005.

Maureen Mercho, chief operating officer for the Post, said ad sales had dropped because of the recession, prompting the magazine to look for ways to broaden its base. "That probably pushed us" to do the redesign, she said.

Post officials also hope that by mixing the magazine's popular art and health features with such content as commentary by former CBS News "Sunday Morning" host Charles Osgood and poetry by Ray Bradbury, the magazine could boost circulation to 500,000 in the coming years.

Mercho said some people are surprised the Post still exists. She suspects that's because the magazine is primarily available only to subscribers; fewer than 5,000 copies an issue are sold on newsstands.

But she believes the relaunch will increase awareness of the magazine.

"The thing the Post has done well over the years is interpret America for America," Mercho said, echoing George Horace Lorimer, who edited the magazine for more than 30 years in the early 1900s. "America is going through seismic changes, and we want to make sure the Post keeps up with what is going on."

STAYING IN TOUCH

To complement the magazine, the Post has relaunched its Web site, offering new posts each Saturday evening — naturally — with retrospective, blogs, health coverage and other content. The Post also has begun an effort to digitize its historical content and offer it online.

"I think the key is keeping your hand on the pulse of what Americans are interested in," SerVaas said. "We're just trying to make sure we stay on that pulse."

America's love affair with the Post and its predecessor dates to 1728, when Benjamin Franklin founded the Pennsylvania Gazette in Philadelphia. New owners changed the name to The Saturday Evening Post in 1821, but it remained a newspaper for decades.

"It was a lot like a weblog now," publishing its own articles and reprinting pieces from other papers, said Jeff Nilsson, who oversees the Post archives.

By the 1870s, the content had shifted toward entertainment, with fiction on the front page. The Post slowly became a true magazine with more advertising, human interest features, fiction, poetry and cartoons. Over the decades, the Post has printed work from such authors as C.S. Lewis, Agatha Christie, Rudyard Kipling, John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Lorimer, who became editor in 1899, made the cover into an artists' showcase. In 1916, the Post began a nearly 50-year relationship with Norman Rockwell, whose cover work became a hallmark of the magazine.

CHANGING TIMES

The artistic covers gave way in the 1960s to photographs of the Beatles, politicians, Klansmen and hippies. Fiction and poetry yielded to investigative reporting as the Post tried to compete with TV and newsmagazines like Life and Look.

Still, the Post ceased publication in 1969, crumpling under financial pressure the TV-print war placed on parent Curtis Publishing. SerVaas' father, Beurt, revived the magazine in 1971 as a quarterly publication after Rockwell announced on television that Beurt SerVaas was considering bringing back the Post.

The magazine, published six times a year, has been in the family since, with Joan SerVaas becoming publisher in 2007. It is now owned by a not-for-profit group set up by the SerVaas family.

While Husni is skeptical about the magazine's future, media strategist Lou Ann Sabatier of Falls Church, Va., notes that the Post has a "brand aura" that has endured despite changes in owners and formats.

"I think there's a hunger for this," she said, referring to the Post's new approach. "In publishing, it's timing. I think the timing is very good for them."