Equilar, a private financial services company, provides information on total executive compensation packages of the top officers at publicly traded companies and nonprofit organizations. Its research is often cited in Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, The New York Times, Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Its flagship publication, C-Suite, is a 52-page branded magazine with a circulation of 20,000 and features interviews with key players in the executive compensation world, including CEOs, CFOs, HR Directors, Board Members, and more.

Equilar reached out to GLC with a common content marketing problem: management of their magazine program was running off schedule, lacked focus, and needed a complete design overhaul. The result included a new strategy for content management and execution, a modern design, and a more suitable schedule to keep this quarterly publication on track and an internally deployed e-newsletter content program.

From a redesign perspective, the cover branding has been simplified and strengthened, both typographically and conceptually to better reflect colloquial references to the magazine within the industry and to allow the cover artwork to dominate the layout.

The primary and secondary typefaces within the magazine contrast each other more strongly in the redesign, creating a clearer hierarchy among textual elements.

Equilar's main selling point — its data — has been given greater prominence with larger and more consistently branded charts and graphs throughout the magazine.

Individual departments have been re-branded with more memorable and inspiring titles, creating better destination points for returning readers.

The treatment of contributor head shots — historically, the magazine's weakest art elements — have been standardized to create a consistent baseline for photo quality as well as provide points of saturated color to help readers navigate layouts.

C-Suite is an APEX and Hermes award winner for creative design.