When the Calgary Polo Club struck a partnership with RedPoint to create a new custom magazine, our team knew it was time to raise our (polo) game. It’s a challenge managing editor Miles Durrie was excited to take on.
Calgary Polo Style focuses on the equestrian sport of polo, but it also covers elements of the polo lifestyle, with fashion spreads, luxury homes, personality profiles and featured products. As he researched and built an editorial lineup for the magazine, Miles was learning the nuances not only of the sport and its history, but also of the sport’s players and fans and their tastes and interests.
“It’s one of the things that makes custom publishing such an effective form of storytelling — it gives equal weight to the big picture and the intricate details. I can’t think of any other medium that lets readers experience a brand so completely in such an inviting, engaging form.”
To know a sport well enough to know what its fans and aficionados love, from apparel and personalities to destinations and dream homes, and to write engagingly and informatively about the subjects, is an interesting creative challenge. Miles describes it as an exercise in total brand immersion. Fortunately, the Calgary Polo Club is a great brand to sink into.
In operation for more than a century, the club currently occupies 120 hectares (300 acres) of land just south of Calgary for more than a century. It includes nine playing fields, a school, viewing space and barns that can accommodate more than 400 horses. It’s one of North America’s oldest, largest and most historic polo facilities.
In addition to editorial covering all things polo, the magazine needed a look that would reflect the character of this more than 2,000-year-old sport. Marketing Solutions director Anders Knudsen, an accomplished designer with a long history of award-winning print work, approached the Calgary Polo Style project with a specific design aesthetic. He paired Bodoni, a classic serif font, with modern sans-serif Univers, and used black elements throughout the magazine to suggest elegance and create a leisurely reading pace. “I wanted Calgary Polo Style to be both modern and classic, like the sport of polo.”
The recent launch party for Calgary Polo Style at the Calgary Polo Club was a celebration of the talent, setting and personalities that make polo a timeless sport, and a story worth telling well.
