Grand Rapids Magazine celebrates its 60th birthday this year, a milestone in an era of fewer and fewer print newspapers and magazines. The journey began in 1964 when the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce began publication of the magazine under the leadership of v-p of communications John Zwarensteyn.
Zwarensteyn bought the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce News in 1979 and brought it under the umbrella of Gemini Communications, later renamed Gemini Publications. Grand Rapids Magazine, its new name, continued to reside with Gemini until Sept. 1, 2018, when Hour Media, based in Troy, MI, purchased the company that became Gemini Media LLC.
New ownership meant change, with the magazine moving from monthly to bi-monthly; the magazine offices closed and employees joined the work-from-home movement. However, the changes that brought it into the 21st century didn’t change the magazine’s focus on local people, eateries, the arts, important issues, businesses, and, in recent years, breweries and beer.
Mayor Rosalynn Bliss has read Grand Rapids Magazine for years, both as a Grand Rapids resident and as two-term mayor and former city commissioner. She’s especially drawn to stories about local businesses and is excited when projects she’s worked on are featured.
“The magazine very often has an optimistic and positive approach to stories, but also balanced. Stories talk about the strengths as well as the challenges,” said Bliss, who points to the importance of in-depth stories highlighting local issues, people and businesses.
“Grand Rapids Magazine is a grounding publication that helps readers amid the changing dynamic of media. It provides a depth of issues that address the complexities of the city and the heart of people who live here,” she said.
Rachael Ruiz grew up in West Michigan and has been in Grand Rapids for decades. Her current role is host and reporter for “eightWest,” a lifestyle and entertainment digest that airs weekday mornings on WOOD- TV8. She’s read Grand Rapids Magazine for years, and was featured on the cover in June 2006 for a story on downtown living, an up-and-coming concept in those days.
“Grand Rapids Magazine was ahead of its time with that story because then it was a novelty to live downtown,” said Ruiz. “The magazine recognizes the importance of a lot of different things: the culinary world, people, entertainment, community events. It’s my go-to magazine because it covers the evolution of Grand Rapids and West Michigan.”
As a journalist, she appreciates the stories, the writing and the photography, also acknowledging that community journalism is hard to come by as newspapers and magazines disappear. “But Grand Rapids Magazine covers community, and readers’ desire for that doesn’t go away. It offers essential information about the place I live and the people I care about.”
It’s been said you can’t judge a book by its cover, but
what about a magazine?
We’ve traced the 60-year history of Grand Rapids Magazine through its covers that mirror the history of our ever-growing, ever-changing city. Here’s what we’ve seen.
The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce News first used color on the cover in December 1964. One color—red to mark
the holiday season—must have seemed revolutionary then, but use of color and the advances in digital printing and typography have shown themselves well in the magazine. The Grand Rapids Magazine title has gone through changes, from its first use in January 1970 to a quick change in February 1970, to tweaks at the starts of 1972, 1976, and 1983.
While changes may seem small, such as closing the space between “Grand” and “Rapids” to opening it several years later, the logo reflects how the magazine wanted to portray itself to the public. The tagline “Celebrating City Life” was added in 2004 and removed in 2020, when the current logo, with its more relaxed and fun feel, came into being. Typography has expanded as recent issues feature examples of how type becomes art and part of the story of the magazine. Perhaps the most well-used portion of the magazine was the coupon offering two-for-one deals to area restaurants, with the restaurant name always appearing on the cover. It started as the Two Plate Special early in the magazine’s history, then became the Two Plate, then the Two Plate Date, the Dining Coupon and, finally, the 2-For-1 Coupon in June 2019. To restaurant aficionados, the end of the monthly deal in 2020 was a sad day indeed.
Grand Rapids Magazine offered tried-and- true cover topics through the years including photos of luscious looking food to mark “Best Of ” restaurants, summer activities such as sailing, and December’s holiday covers. There were plenty of festival-season covers, covers honoring Grand Rapids artists such as Jose Narezo, the symphony seasons and conductors such as Catherine Comet, and poets (Marcel “Fable” Price). Don’t forget the opening of the Frederik Meijer Gardens in 1995 and the Sculpture Park in 2002.
Grand Rapids Magazine often featured the local art scene, with the annual Festival of the Arts covered each year and features on the installation of “La Grande Vitesse” (famously shortened to The Calder), artists, the Grand Rapids Art Museum and the opening of the Frederik Meijer Gardens in 1995.
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