COVER
The marketplace for magazines and books is incredibly overcrowded - go into any newsagent or bookstore and you'll see racks upon racks of covers that look almost identical. Especially with magazines you'll find no matter what the topic; music, fashion, fitness, sports - most have a similar structure, typically a grinning celebrity peeking out from an army of cover lines. Magazines weren't always like this though.
In what many consider the golden age of magazines, the 30's - 60's, the cover was designed to be a canvas summing up the whole theme of the magazine. Covers were commissioned from the most famous artists and illustrators with the brief to be as different from the competitors as possible - a very different world from what we see out there today.
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COVER IMAGES
A celebrity head shot, photoshopped to remove unsightly realism, eyes open and iris expanded (a sign of attraction), mouth slightly open, white teeth, faces not centered on the nose but on one of the eyes - these are the covers of our time. Why?
Dick Stolley, the founding editor of People magazine in the US
is well known for his mantra of popular covers:
"Young is better than old.Thus he is also credited as ruining the cover industry, as everyone clambered to copy People's success. The last line was added at a later date after their previous best selling cover (a tribute to John Lennon) was beaten by a tribute to Diana.
Pretty is better than ugly.
Rich is better than poor.
Movies are better than music.
Music is better than television.
Television is better than sports.
Anything is better than politics,
and dead is better than living."
Thankfully there seems to be some wish to move away from these hard & fast rules of blandness - although try and tell that to some of the editors and distributors out there and you'll wonder if it's true. In the creative culture areas there is a real push to turn back the clock, a k.i.s.s. approach and if we're honest, it's the sort of target market that is interested in a little mystery - but then what target markets aren't? Are the cover designers and editors not giving their audience enough credit?
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COVER LINES - Part 2
Most magazines seem to think of coverlines as an extension of the contents, and try to jam 10-15 of them on the cover. The result is a mess, with far too much jostling for attention. As is often the case, less is more when it comes to the front cover.Writing cover lines can be deceptively difficult. Practice and research pay off obviously and there are even university courses where you can study it.
The area has been hugely researched, and there is much written on it (good technique, bad technique) that you can find on the web. One thing has been proven though, good cover lines not only sell more copies, but increase brand ownership of magazines.
The first thing to remember when writing a cover line, is to keep it simple. We must remember that most people only spend a second or two browsing the newsagent stands, before choosing their purchase. They need to be able to read, understand, and associate with the magazine in that short time.
Key words, such as new, free, now, always work well. Sandra J. Blum is known for her research into reactionary words, specifically in relation to cover lines. She created a list that also includes introducing, guarantee, save, love, discover, advice, sex, proven, how to, results, money, secrets, health, easy, safety, and '10 (or any specific number) ways to...' They demand immediacy and attention from the viewer. Another good technique is to appeal to the viewers emotions and senses. If the reader can almost taste, hear or smell it, you've sold the issue.
Similar to when we went through the naming process, there are a number of tests you should do on your cover lines.
- Is it exciting, does it promise excitement about the editorial?
- Is it personal? Does it use the word 'you' or another word that links directly to the viewer.
- Can it be made more passionate or positive? Emotional? Motivational?
- Does it have drama? Does it leave the audience wanting more?
- Is it as short as it can be without losing clarity?
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CASE STUDY - Monster Children
Who stole my cover lines? Again, Monster Children go against the grain and break the rules - at least for the first 5 or so issues - at which point they started selling the mag in a paper bag carrying the cover lines. What would seem like the wrong thing to do (hiding your cover) turned out to be the right thing as people got excited by the mystery of it all - especially when they started selling alternative covers. You didn't know what you were going to get until you ripped open the bag - it was like Christmas every issue!
There is rumors though the reason they started selling in paper bags was because of the trouble they got into over the alternative cover they produced for issue 4.
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WHERE TO PUT COVER LINES
Header Hugging - This is a technique of placing all the text in one easy to find area, normally at the top allowing the image to breath and have space.
Boxed - In the past printers faced difficulties in placing text on top of an image, unless they made a separate run through the press after the first run was dry. To get around this, knockouts were used to create boxes inside an image, into which type could be placed. Some magazines began using cover lines in more than one position - often causing many an illustrator to complain as they competed for cover space with such innovations as knockouts for cover lines.
Column - Another solution, which has appeared in many forms over the decades, is to create a colored vertical column for cover lines alone. Magazines have used considerable ingenuity in creating a column on their covers with images frequently overlapping the column that held the cover lines, making the cover more of an integrated whole.
Zoned - The simplest method for combining pictures with cover lines is to keep them in separate areas of the cover, zones. This solution is common and can be traced all the way back to 1890. Many magazines still use highly segmented covers: A zone contains the title, another zone contains the picture, a third zone contains cover lines or other publication data. Keeping text and pictures separate simplifies the printing process and it eliminates the difficulties that can arise from printing type over a picture.
Banners & Corners - Banners seem to belong to attention-grabbing loud covers, and have been used little, or in restrained ways, by successful, mainstream publications. Corners are often used to get that 'Hold The Press' feel.
Unplanned Space - It is useful to distinguish several ways of placing text inside a cover picture. In the simplest approach, text might be described as being fitted into spaces that seem almost accidentally left blank by the background image. Often the cover lines seem to be squeezed into awkward spaces around the cover model.
Planned Space - This is a way of combining pictures with cover lines where the interplay is planned beforehand by the illustrator or photographer. Many, many images are created with spaces especially for the display of cover lines, on elements inside the illustrations--such as walls, sails, columns, doorways, open windows, and other uniformly colored spaces against which type could be placed.
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INSPIRATION & EXTRAS
Each week I throw up things I find that relate to what we've been discussing or working on that week. Sometimes it might be things that relate to your major assessment and sometimes just stuff I thought was worth seeing. If you find something you think we should be showing or something we just have to see let us know in class or throw an email over to me at matt@billyblue.com.au and I'll get it up here or on the Bluni inspiration site.
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WHEN THERE IS NOTHING TO SAY - September 11th kills coverlines.
The September 11th terrorist attacks in New York left many editors with nothing to say on the covers allowing for some interesting artistic interpretations. With barely noticeable black rectangles, the New Yorker embodied the tragedy of September 11 and stated their opinion by having the antenna of the north tower split the letter W in the logo magazine.
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THE 50 CENT COVER
Designing Magazines covers a story on Wired's designer Scott Dadich and his budget covers. No photographers, no models, no assistants, no hair stylists, make-up, set builders or fashion. Just good old fashioned type and a little stock occasionally. It's not only Wired that sneaks out a 50cent cover now and then.
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ATLANTIC REDESIGN
Pentagram has posted a great piece about their process for the Atlantic redesign. They go right through their research, past redesigns and rejected options. Well worth a read.
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MORE RADAR MAGAZINE COVERS
I love the Radar covers, always unique and always interesting.
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BEople COVERS
A Magazine About a certain Belgium - reads the tagline. Designed by Base from New York. Base wrote a short description for AIGA Design Archives which I've stolen and placed below for educational reasons - please don't sue me.
BEople was launched in one of the most difficult magazine markets of the last two decades. We therefore made design decisions to attempt to have it attract attention in a crowded newsstand: first, the dot on the cover, a simple idea to place emphasis on the magazine’s title; second, an indeterminate grid that shifts according to the subject matter. But perhaps most importantly, we strove for an overall aesthetic that blends classicism and modernism, allowing the magazine to appear rich but uncluttered and to evolve with every new issue - Base NY
I wonder whether the thinking was similar for CONTRASTe magazine?
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LUCIRE REDESIGN
Lucire redesign has taken a generally old fashioned magazine and brought it into the future. Does it work? Founder and publisher Jack Yan had this to say:
‘We needed greater visibility on newsstands, and the new masthead is a logical evolution of our traditional one. But really it is to signal the arrival of Lucire TV and our new mobile edition—musts as we head toward a new decade. The release across so many media of new Lucire editions points to how the magazine, unique in having started on the web before extending into print, successfully reaches audiences on the web, in print, and on mobile devices. Our strategy has always been to use every medium possible, and this will become more apparent to the industry as things develop.’
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COVER LINES GONE WRONG - Cosmo Spoof
If men wrote cover lines for Cosmo.
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Look & OK! GET SUED!
An interesting story about Woman's weeklies getting in trouble over misleading cover lines. Click on pic to go to link.
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THEN & NOW - Pop Cult Mag
A nice little article comparing the differences of magazines covers from the past with ones of today. Click on the image for full article.
