Originally posted Jun 26, 2009
When I was in the magazine business, I went to several magazine cover seminars where experts told us which colors and words generated the best newsstand sales; for example, “Ten Hot Tips” is much better than “Hot Tips.” Follow the rules and you would have predictable sales results. Nothing spectacular, mind you, but predictable. And if you publish an enthusiast magazine (cars, computers, trains, motorcycles, etc.), you should always picture that subject on the cover — never a person. I found out the hard way that these rules are generally true.
Yet there’s something in us that longs to break the rules. Breaking the rules on magazine cover theory is tricky. Do it poorly and you suffer fewer sales. Do it well and you may have a classic that breaks all sales records. Another complication: Once you or someone else has done something (like holographs or fluorescent colors), it’s far less effective for the next guy. Click on any cover for a larger version.
You also weren’t supposed to cross the wall between the magazine and the consumer. This meant never letting on that you were trying to trick the consumer into picking up the issue or better yet, buying it. But my favorite magazine covers are the ones that do just that.
Perhaps the best known of this style is this great National Lampoon cover from 1973. It spoke directly to the consumer as purchaser and effectively showed them the consequences of their inaction. Brilliant.
And Mad magazine has done this quite a few times, as if to shout, “Hey you! Come over here and buy this magazine!” I remember almost falling for one of these tricks myself.
Another rule was to always highlight stories inside with text. No artsy-fartsy concept covers devoid of words. That’s why even the New Yorker has a cover wrap on newsstand copies so they can promote the stories within. So you can imagine what the cover experts would have to say about these three examples from the weeks after September 11. But I think they are compelling.
And if you have established a certain pattern with your cover designs, then you should always stick with that, or so the experts say. Perhaps that’s why I like these Mad magazine covers that break the typical Mad mold (which shows Alfred E. Neuman in some sort of parody role).
And no discussion of magazine covers should take place without paying respect to one of the greats, the Time Magazine “Is God Dead” cover (which was very controversial when released). It is eclipsed only by the follow-up tribute cover of a Grateful Dead fan magazine (called Relix) that asked in similarly large type, “Is Dead God?”
I could fill a year’s worth of columns with my favorite magazine cover designs. These are just a few I could put my hands on. If you have some of your own, please share them via the Comments button.
This article was last modified on June 11, 2020
This article was first published on August 10, 2015
Commenting is easier and faster when you're logged in!
Leave a Reply
I think I still have NatLamCo issue of “Buy This Magazine or We’ll Shoot this Dog”. Great article.
This is beyond the purview of your intentions — there are rules, there is rule-breaking — but when it doubt there’s always genius. Gotta shout out the genius of George Lois’ Esquire covers. https://www.georgelois.com/esquire.html
‘Course your focus was on newsstand appearance, but my subscription copy of the Sept 11 New Yorker didn’t have any type on it & it also had a faint, very hard to see, depiction of the two towers (maybe two faint indentations, I’m not sure)
how do you get away with scanning something that is still under copyright protection? I would like to use the MAD magazine cover with a bar code for a project but it is only 31 years old; not 75 years old. omegle
Just love your post!
Great stuff, as usual. But I find it interesting that on the 9/11 cover of “The New Yorker,” their “professional” staff can’t even kern their damn 1’s! One of my biggest pet peeves in typography…
Maybe, lack of kerning, was to get your attention.
The red date was not on the cover of my Sept. 24, 211, New Yorker it was simply black and the header.
Cover of Opium magazine used special ink that estimated to complete the story on the cover 1000 years later. https://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/06/story-that-takes-1000-years-to-read-is-antidote-to-media-whirlwind/
how do you get away with scanning something that is still under copyright protection? I would like to use the MAD magazine cover with a bar code for a project but it is only 31 years old; not 75 years old.
Gene was the publisher of Publish magazine for most of the time I was an editor there. On the February 1999 cover, we broke one of the rules by not only having a person on the cover, but by having almost nothing BUT a person on the cover:
The art director, Jean Zambelli, was fearless. Later that year she again put a person on the cover. To match the theme of the issue — paper suppliers — she sewed the model’s clothes out of paper. The accessories were office supplies.
Good times, good times!
Terri Stone
Editor in Chief, CreativePro.com