Some lovely recent cover work

March 16, 2011 in Clever ideas, Magazine covers | 4 comments

You can expect at least some of these to return in my top ten of 2011.

This is a jobs supplement from the Süddeutsche Zeitung, aimed at school-leavers. Kati Krause translates it thusly:

Crossed-out text: “How are you going to live. How do you make the right decisions? Will your relationship survive leaving school? You don’t have an idea what you want to be either? Are you too much of a coward to get started in your dream job? How do you tie a tie? Is it ok to be Facebook friends with one’s teacher? What do you have to know to live in a shared flat?”

Circled text: “You decide what you want. Start with joy.”

I like this very much. Their fashion-literate readership will instantly recognise the mouth (just in case you don’t), and there’s a good, feature-led reason to draw attention to it. Add in the bright, unusual colours, and you have a lovely Rocky Horror/Samuel Beckett tribute cover.

Colourful geometric pattern made personal.

Just the right sense of urban recklessness for Vice‘s readership.

Little White Lies continues to experiment while remaining true to their basic, successful cover aesthetic. I hope they never lead with a photograph.

Most if not all have come via either Cover Junkie, Nas Capas, Newmanology or Magculture – all of which are highly recommended.

Finally, two image-led bonus links:

The above photo by Richard Avedon was the first full-page picture ever to appear in the New Yorker, in 1992. I learned this while reading about how the New Yorker is saying goodbye to its talented Visuals Editor Elisabeth Biondi with tributes by some of their contributors/staff. (She’s not dead, just moving on.) There’s also a great interview with her here about her history and philosophy.

This is the greatest magazine rejection letter I’ve seen. (Source; thanks Kate.)

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  1. Jonathan’s avatar

    Jonathan on March 16, 2011 at 12:32 pm

    Those are indeed beautiful covers, Andrew.

    It is perhaps also worth noting that the first four examples are all FREE publications, too.

    I wonder how different they would have looked if they’d had to compete on the news-stand and entice people to actually part with money for them.

  2. andrew’s avatar

    andrew on March 16, 2011 at 3:13 pm

    Interesting point, Jonathan. Any great newsstand covers people would like to share?

  3. James Kelleher’s avatar

    James Kelleher on March 22, 2011 at 11:56 am

    Jonathan: I think that the newsstand titles are competing with the freebies as much as each other – and that inventive, beautiful and smart cover design is a more effective way to sell magazines than the newsstand default of 1bn cover lines per month.

  4. Jonathan’s avatar

    Jonathan on March 30, 2011 at 5:05 am

    James: I suspect the current newsstand default of a mass of coverlines has come about because, aesthetically displeasing as it may be, publishers have found that this is an effective way to entice shoppers to purchase their publications.