Toronto Life, the universe and everything

Toronto Life's new look, at least the cover, was unveiled today in mastheadonline, the web page of the magazine industry trade book. We can see how they wanted to keep some of the Ken Rodmell's '70s look, but that means that the new 'all on one line' logo looks, um, very '70s.

It will allow for better use of the cover, including full bleed images and dropouts. The James Chatto cover story on Where to Eat looks charming and inviting.

However the unfortunate letter forms of the all-cap logo means that the word 'Toronto' (and those big honkin' O's) is like some sprawling fat guy taking up all the space on a park bench, while the little word 'Life' is squished up, with one cheek hanging off the end.

The main reason why they didn't stray too far from the original logo and its successor (except for banishing the ubiquitous red box) may have been that TL has such an established brand, on every restaurant window in town, that they didn't want to mess with success.