Editor’s Note: On Renovation

The last time Vancouver magazine refreshed its pages, Stephen Harper had just forecast a $3 billion budget surplus, and top-grossing movies were the fantasy epic 300 and Tim Allen’s midlife road movie Wild Hogs. The Iraq War was halfway over, the financial meltdown was still over the horizon, and we weren’t yet an Olympic city or in line for greenest.

This month’s top movie (Thor 2) is another fantasy epic, but in many other ways life has changed substantially since 2007. Our city has undergone a profound shift in its evolution, and it’s for this reason as much as any that we hunkered down to review how we envision and deliver this magazine.

Editors and designers, we’ve spent six months sketching ideas, making lists, reading the archives, arguing, and dreaming to close in on what we might deliver our growing readership each month. I hope the changes will be noticeable at a glance, but I’d draw your attention to several innovations we’re especially proud of. We’ve introduced more real estate coverage in our rechristened front section The Brief. You come to us for food, so we’ve moved that content forward and renamed it. The Dish still covers the city’s best restaurants and bars, and we’ve added suggestions for nights at home. (As one example, check out a lifesize King crab, with recipes.) And we’ve created a section called The Goods that reports on shopping, travel, wellness, and style. All this in a redesigned package we hope will make reading Vanmag effortless and joyful.

Our features remain unchanged. Roberta Staley met with Sgt. Diane Cockle on the CSI-type investigator’s return from Nairobi for the story of her chilling work. And this marks our 10th annual Wine Awards. Led by chief judge DJ Kearney, 17 experts winnowed an overwhelming 725 bottles down to a manageable 110 finalists. With each recommended wine, I’m confident you’ll find terrific value and evidence of its makers’ creativity, intelligence, and passion — the same qualities we hope you’ll discover in our newly conceived pages.