Bringing life back to a historic magazine.

CCM Magazine  

CCM Magazine has a rich 30 year history of covering mainstream artists like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and U2 and Christian artists like Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and TobyMac. We helped recharged the magazine with a fresh redesign that gave homage to the past while pushing the boundaries of the present.

We introduced a bold new look using custom photography, a vibrant new color palette with fresh typography and designed a clean grid. Strong department headers were built to differentiate the various sections of the magazine and many various character and paragraph templates were developed for page-to-page consistency. As a result of these efforts, we received a Gold Ozzie award for Best Magazine Redesign (other category winners that year included GQ, Architectural Digest and National Geographic).


A Fresh New Look and Feel

The new design was created with the flexibility to build the design around the tone of each story. This specific feature was executed to reflect the impeccable style of Grammy-winning artist TobyMac. The open grid was conceived to allow the content to shine, giving the readers a close and personal look at some of their favorite artists.



Exclusive Photo Shoots

Exclusive photography played an integral role in the redesign. Our initial challenge was to convince the industry (including labels, managers and artists) of the value that exclusive, personality-driven images can bring to their artists. Our work eventually won them over and as a result were able to produce photos that captured a fun, exciting side of the artists that had never been seen before.


Classic and Engaging Covers

The emphasis behind the new covers was to showcase the artists in a natural, authentic manner that allowed their personality to shine. Occasionally, we get the privilege of working with artists that elevate the level of design to another level with their beauty and sophistication. This was the case with the popular Michael W. Smith and Nichole Nordeman covers.



Colorful Feature Designs

For the Cliff Notes feature, we needed to conceive a way to visually showcase the huge network of musicians Cliff Young was connected to in just one page. We organized all the data and developed an appealing and understandable color-coded, web-like diagram.

This London feature was written in a style very reminescent of a travel publication. We implemented a complex timeline throughout the entire feature, and devised a concept that would reflect the excitement of travel, utilizing recognizable imagery associated with London.

This opening feature spread for Steven Curtis Chapman was fashioned to show the humanistic side of being an artists. We emphasized this concept by selecting a serene photo of Steven and contrasted it with a bold typographical feature introduction.

Nicole C. Mullen is a well-known songwriter also recognized as being a strong woman with a bold sense of style. We opened this feature with a colorful two-page photo spread, showcasing Nicole’s beauty and personality and accentuating her colorful knack for fashion.