November 17, 2007

Good, Eye-Catching Design

In print design, magazine covers are a favorite of mine, because the creativity that can come out of a good front page can invoke many different emotions from readers. Some can be exciting, solemn, or even passionate for a topic or issue, and if you're an effective designer, it can be a good sell for your magazine. A good cover and article will keep your reader subscribed, and even better, might even lure an on-looker to take a look themselves.

I've been waiting to write about this for a while, and though there are hundreds of fantastic, decades-old magazine covers to choose an example from, the November 19, 2007 issue of Newsweek is a perfect demonstration of how that occurs today:

Newsweek. 1968: The Year That Made Us Who We Are.
Click for large size.

My family has been subscribed to Newsweek for years, but when I saw this sitting at my table, I literally turned around and picked it up just because of the cover. Certainly there have been times when I've picked up an issue of the magazine and admired the cover, i.e: "Oh, that's cool what Newsweek did with their cover this week", but this is the first time I've fallen in love with an issue just because of the cover.

Just take a closer look. The cartoony, Yellow Submarine-esque sunrays, retro blue space sky and stars are wonderfully placed- animated, but not busy- and the year "1968" graces the dead-center in a glorious green gradient. The figures of Robert Kennedy et al. sit soundly at the bottom, cast in black and white as a contrast to this colorful "world", symbolizing the happy dreams and solemn realities of the year.

But what stands out to me most as an amateur designer is how un-Newsweek-like this cover feels. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because Newsweek has a fine design team, but the fonts, colors and tone are very unique and "poppy" compared to most issues. And if you look to the bottom-right of the issue, you'll see that the cover was designed by Peter Max- a well-known pop artist who was involved in the 60's psychedelic movement. I would venture, therefore, that Newsweek's regular cover staff was mostly hands-off for this project.

It's great to see aged art styles like this in modern print design, and how designers are paying homage to culture movements of years past.