East Coast Living magazine, the winner of the first Magazine Makeover Contest, sponsored in part by CoversSell.Com, has now officially been revealed.

K9 Design took the lead role in the process.   The before-and-after cover look is posted below for viewing.



East Coast Living also received a complete makeover inside the magazine’s cover too, as part of the free consultation.

The Official Press Release Follows:

East Coast Living Magazine Makeover Revealed

New ECL cover to display on stands with pride among major home decor titles
   
TORONTO, September 15, 2010  The made-over cover for Nova Scotia-based quarterly, East Coast Living (ECL) magazine, winner of K9 Design’s Magazine Makeover contest, launched today.

    The Magazine Makeover Contest, presented by K9 Design, was created to celebrate magazine design and offer one Canadian publisher a complete overhaul of their publication.

    The old cover had become dated,said Norm Lourenco, Creative Director at K9 Design. The new cover is a complete metamorphosis and put the living back into East Coast Living.

    East Coast Living publisher, Sheila Blair-Reid comments, We have teamed up with some of Canada’s best to create a wonderful new, slick urban cover. The redesign process has given us an opportunity to reorganize the entire magazine to better serve our readers. It has been an exciting experience and we are still feeling very proud to have been selected as the winner of the makeover. We can’t wait for the launch of the entire issue.”
   
The top three transformational elements:

    1. New Logo: The new ECL cover has a completely overhauled logo; It’s modern, powerful, integrated and will excite readers and advertisers. Moving the logo over to the far left maximizes newsstand visibility. De-cluttering the area around the logo, gives the logo room to breath and encourages the eye to travel more freely to the main image and main selling feature.

    2. New Photo Treatment: The new ECL cover uses photography that allows the reader to be a fly on the wall. Every cover moving forward will follow this new standard that places an emphasis on the home but also incorporates signs of life.

    3. New Cover Line Esthetic: The new ECL cover lines were revamped from font to placement. Cover lines were reduced and the font size was bumped up and moved to a prime position to radically commit to the main selling feature. We added supporting bullet points to underscore reader benefits and value proposition. The copy is more direct and less cutesy while interesting interrupter devices (both starburst and ribbon) call out important buying messages to consumers. The result is a clean and easy-to-follow esthetic with a defined hierarchy of information.

    The prize package also included strategic direction and redesign on interior layouts from K9 Design (to be unveiled in November), circulation consultation from Coverssell.com, digital publishing from Dawson Communications NXT Book Media, printing services from Ironstone Media, core promotional printed product from Annex Printing, and stock photography from iStockphoto.

    Entries spanned British Columbia to Nova Scotia with industry vets who made up the judging panel. All agreed that out of the four finalist publications, East Coast Living was the best example of a book that could catapult to the next level if given the opportunity to make over its brand.

Judges included: Scott Bullock, principle at Coverssell.com, Circulation Solutions; Brian Stendel, President of Keystone Media; Doug Bennet Publisher, Masthead and Design Edge; Kathy Ullyott Editor-in-Chief Homemakers; Norm Lourenco Creative Director, K9 Design Co.; and Brittany Eccles, Deputy Art Director, Flare.