Avenue Calgary and Avenue Edmonton each have a qualified circulation around 30,000.

Avenue, RedPoint Media Group Inc.’s mini franchise of city magazines, with Calgary and Edmonton editions, has dropped its “Live, work & play” tag line as part of an across-the-brand re-engineering that incorporates new design, architectural and editorial elements. The old tag line, says Avenue Calgary editor Käthe Lemon, had been picked up by local tourism boards in recent years and was causing some confusion. “There were specific times where readers believed we were part of a campaign with the city,” she says.

In past issues, both magazines were divided into eight sections, a format that sometimes made story selection and placement difficult, according to Lemon. “There were too many little bitty sections,” she says. “None of them really got going.” This was especially true for the Edmonton edition, which is typically a thinner book. The redesigned format is built around four sections: Features, City, Life, and Style.

The Avenue Calgary team spearheaded the changes, which also include increased emphasis on health, wellness, balanced lifestyle and travel stories, new columns, stronger borders to distinguish editorial from advertising, and a switch to a serif font for cover lines,  signalling a “more serious read.”

“We’ve refocused on our strengths,” Lemon says.