Magazine Covers -12/1/14-

When designing a magazine cover be sure to keep in mind these five things.

1. Familiar recognition from issue to issue (that’s the brand)

2. Emotionally irresistible (that’s the image’s appeal)

3. Arousing curiosity (that’s to pull the casual glancer in)

4. Intellectually stimulating, interesting (that’s to promise benefits)

5. Efficient, fast, easy to scan (that’s showing off the service)

http://www.magazine.org/asme/magazine-cover-contest/past-winners-finalists/2014-winners-finalists 

1. Formal
2. Environmental
3. Informal
4. Informal
5. Formal
6. Formal
7. Formal
8. Formal
9. Formal
10. Formal
11. Formal
12. Informal
13. Formal
14. Formal
15. Informal
16. Formal
17. Formal

"For W’s December/January Art Issue, the magazine collaborated with artist Yayoi Kusama to create this iconic cover image depicting George Clooney. The visually arresting image is the highlight of the cover story, for which five leading female artists were invited to create interpretive portraits of the actor. Clooney wears a suit painted by Kusama with her signature polka dots and stands against a polka-dotted backdrop. Planned to coincide with the opening of an exhibition of new work by Kusama at David Zwirner Gallery, the cover makes a powerful reference to the artist’s iconic self-portraits."

In this portrait the photographer uses the busy back ground and the matching outfit to make the only non effected area, his face, stand out. It definitely catches your attention as you are looking through the magazines. I also like that the side that has more light is also the side of the suit with more and bigger white dots, adding to the brightness of that side. On thing I could pick on is the text being a little hard to read, perhaps having the color be just a bit darker or a the lettering a bit less opaque would make it easier to read.

Early Magazine Covers

Earlier Magazine covers had basic covers with a title, a small illustration centered underneath it, and the author's name under that. The illustration did not relate to the subject of the article but was instead mainly for decoration. Keeping up with the times, magazine covers became more Victorian during the era. Artistic lettering and leafy, viney, and flowery designs began to show up on covers but as the times moved on so did the magazines.

Postor Covers

As magazines moved on they morphed into the poster cover. A poster cover magazine consists of one large image that usually doesn't inform about the article inside, a logo that doesn't cover the photo, and an absence of cover lines. Although most poster cover images did not relate to the story inside the magazine they did generally convey a season, feeling or mood.

Posters Married to Type

Soon enough magazine covers started to include cover lines later followed by pictures that were related to the story inside. Soon the subjects of the articles started taking to modeling for the pictures that would go on the covers of the magazines. Sometimes a magazine would underline the most important subjects or the main article's cover lines, drawing attention to them.

In The Forest of Words

Soon words and cover lines become an important part of magazine covers. Some cover lines become bigger than the titles of the magazines and competed with the title for your attention. The images are no longer foreground, put behind cover lines, titles, and sneak preview photos of what's inside.