Alternatives hires K9 Design and Coverssell to boost its look and audience

February 2012

Alternatives Journal is clearly intent on expanding its reach. While the environmental magazine has a strong niche following, it has struggled to reach the wider public. It has now retained K9 design to renovate and redesign the magazine and Scott Bullock of Coverssell.com to create a newsstand strategy and manage circulation. In a release on the K9 website, Marcia Ruby, the publisher and creative director of Alternatives, which is published 6 times a year out of Waterloo, says

"Now is the time that Alternatives must facilitate the voice of environment louder than ever, so this redesign is also the most critical to the future of our 41-year-old magazine. Alternatives began in the fledgling years of the environment movement, when Environment Canada, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund and loads of other like-minded organizations began taking shape."

As one of the reasons for retaining them, Ruby points to the positive impact that a K9 redesign had for East Coast Living, boosting advertising and newsstand sales after the magazine won the redesign in a national competition. 

"The redesign process will not only produce a new aesthetic cover-to-cover, we will pull apart every nook and cranny to reveal all the areas that need to be overhauled," says the K9 release. "Editorial, circulation strategy and launch are all under scrutiny."