With ‘quality’ in the title, a redesign of the Chartered Quality Institute’s members’ magazine needed to set the highest of standards, says editor Amy Bennett.
CPL One has worked closely with the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) team since 2021 to produce its quarterly members’ magazine, Quality World. After four years of gaining a deep knowledge about the readership and its wide-ranging needs, the time was right to refresh the magazine’s look and feel.
From our kick-off meeting with the CQI’s content manager, Tracy Tyley, and its head of professional development, Gareth Kingston, the ‘wish list’ was clear: a clean and sophisticated look and feel, with the same great content inside, offering a balance of learning and insight for quality and audit professionals.
As well as important considerations around accessibility – font legibility and size, and the colour palette used – we suggested reducing the physical size of the magazine to make it easier to hold and read. The decision was made early on to trim the magazine to ‘squat A4’, while retaining the same pagination (no ‘shrinkflation’ here!)
Continuing professional development (CPD) is at the heart of all the CQI’s content output, and supporting this was a key element in redesign decisions.
The CQI’s Profession Map allows members to measure themselves against five key competences of quality professionals – Context, Governance, Assurance, Improvement and Leadership. To help with this, we introduced a ‘badging’ system to the first page of each feature, enabling members to see at a glance to which competences the article relates to support them on their learning journey.
Another new element to boost CPD is a short ‘learning summary’ at the start of each feature – three tabs built into the design that spell out the key takeaways from the feature.
The CQI has a huge range of content available to members, from online articles and blogs, to webinars, e-learning courses and videos, to the popular Quality Impact podcast.
To help members in developing the learning they need to support their careers, we added ‘further learning’ summaries to the end of each feature, directing them to more CQI content to further their knowledge of a subject.
These ‘read’, ‘watch’, ‘listen’ and ‘learn’ icons help members quickly navigate to related content, as well as showcasing the breadth of CQI content available.
Working closely with the CQI and its content advisory panel drawn from member volunteers, managing editor Tracy Tyley, CPL One senior designer James Baldwin and I are proud to have produced a magazine that combines a fresh new look centred on insightful and practical content that really delivers for quality and audit professionals.
“I am delighted with the outcome of the Quality World update, but not surprised. CPL One is not just another supplier. It is a collaborative partner co-creating new value for our members aligned with our mission and strategy.”
Vince Desmond, CEO, CQI
“They say ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. What they should actually say is ‘if it ain’t broke, find ways to improve it’. That is what the teams at CQI and CPL One have done with Quality World, and we are delighted with the results. We are confident our members will be too.”
Gareth Kingston, head of professional development, CQI
