{"id":3922,"date":"2019-05-20T17:07:03","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T21:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ceros.com\/inspire\/?p=3922"},"modified":"2021-03-10T11:48:12","modified_gmt":"2021-03-10T16:48:12","slug":"6-lessons-from-iconic-magazine-covers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ceros.com\/inspire\/originals\/6-lessons-from-iconic-magazine-covers\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Lessons from Iconic Magazine Covers"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 6<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

Even in an age of declining print runs and disappearing subscribers, the magazine cover<\/a> still has the power to shock and surprise. In fact, as our lives become increasingly digitized, magazine covers can feel like one of the few fixed points in our ephemeral visual culture. As The Guardian\u2019s <\/em>creative director Alex Breuer said<\/a>, \u201cThe print cover has a unique value in marking key moments and preserving them in a way digital platforms are less successful at because of their need to change and update.\u201d So what can some of the most iconic magazine covers ever teach us about creating images that last longer than a hot social media second? Let\u2019s take a look. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Well-concealed nudity can have a massive impact.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rolling Stone<\/em><\/strong> (January 22, 1981)
John and Yoko<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vanity Fair<\/em><\/strong> (August 1991)
\u201cMore Demi Moore\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photographed by Annie Leibovitz, this Rolling Stone<\/em> cover’s lasting impact isn\u2019t due just to the strength of its image. The photo was taken mere hours before Lennon was gunned down at his home in the Dakota, in New York in December, 1980. Leibovitz explained the photo\u2019s impromptu origins to Racked<\/a>, “The ’80s were not a romantic time and I asked [John and Yoko] to crawl up together. I wanted them both to be naked, but Yoko wouldn’t take off her pants so I said, ‘why don’t you keep everything on?’ In those days, you pull a Polaroid and the three of us knew right away it was good.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another notorious Leibovitz cover image, ten years later, also gained instant notoriety. Many credit this photo of Demi Moore, seven months pregnant with her second child, for sparking a trend in flaunting<\/a> one\u2019s pregnancy. Tina Brown, then editor of Vanity Fair<\/em>, described<\/a> the photo: \u201cAnti-Hollywood, anti-glitz, a new young movie star willing to say, ‘I look beautiful pregnant,’ and not ashamed of it.\u201d At the time, that lack of shame was not quite universal. Outside of New York, newsstands featured the issue sheathed in white paper, only Moore\u2019s eyes visible above the wrapping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Let the image do the talking. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

New York<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>(March 2008)
Eliot Spitzer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esquire<\/em><\/strong> (December 2000)
President Bill Clinton<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following New York Governor Eliot Spitzer\u2019s sex scandal, artist Barbara Kruger simply added an anatomical note to an otherwise unremarkable portrait and created a cover that\u2019s hard to forget, no matter how we might try. The image went on to win ASME\u2019s 2008 Cover of the Year<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically Bill Clinton\u2019s cover shoot was not intended to evoke a sexual swagger at all; his pose was meant to evoke that of the Lincoln Memorial. But the portrait from famed photographer Platon quickly came to signify a lot more than presidential monumentality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Platon later recounted the shoot for RESPECT. <\/a> \u201cI put on my usual lens and I said to him, \u2018Mr. President will you show me the love?\u2019 and everyone in the room gasped in horror, because it was about 30 people in the room\u2014all his White House aides, the drivers, security\u2014and they all were like, \u2018Oh no whatever you do, whatever this guy\u2019s after, don\u2019t give it to him.\u2019 And Clinton told everybody to shut up and he knew what I wanted and he put his hands on his knees and he gave me the Clinton magic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Worried your subject is over-exposed? Try a caricature. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Esquire<\/em><\/strong> (May 1969)
Andy Warhol Soup Can

Art director: George Lois
Photographer: Carl Fischer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paper<\/em> Magazine<\/em><\/strong> (Winter 2014)
“Break the Internet: Kim Kardashian”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legendary Esquire <\/em>art director George Lois is responsible for some of the most legendary covers of all time and well-known for his ability to convey big ideas in visually arresting imagery. Lois later explained the Andy Warhol cover to New York<\/em><\/a>: \u201cThis was hot shit. The article was basically a caustic review about what was going on in the arts in America at the time, and without even reading it, I knew I wanted Andy Warhol drowning in his own soup. I just had the image in my head. And I called him, and said, \u2018Andy I want you on the cover of Esquire<\/em>.\u2019 And he said, \u2018Wait a minute, George, you always have an idea on the cover, what\u2019s the idea?\u2019 And I told him, and he said, \u2018I love it!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photographed by Jean-Paul Goude (with the aid of some computer enhancement), Paper<\/em>\u2019s now-ubiquitous cover was faced with one big challenge: how do you create something new when you\u2019re photographing one of the most photographed women in the world? Goude\u2019s answer was brilliant in its simplicity\u2014take Kim\u2019s iconic silhouette and give it cartoon-like proportions\u2014and it did nearly break the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Religious imagery isn\u2019t just for Renaissance paintings.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Esquire<\/em><\/strong> (April 1968)
Muhammad Ali \/ St. Sebastian<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rolling<\/em> Stone<\/em> <\/strong>(February 2006)
Kanye West<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, it\u2019s another George Lois cover (and there\u2019s still more to come), this time depicting Muhammad Ali as martyr and icon Saint Sebastian. After refusing to be drafted into the U.S. Army, as well as his controversial conversion to Islam, Ali\u2019s star was on the wane in 1968, inspiring Lois to draw upon religious imagery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was just one problem\u2014the boxer wouldn\u2019t pose as a Christian saint. In an attempt to save the shoot, Lois called Elijah Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam. Lois later explained<\/a>, \u201cElijah Muhammad and I had [a phone call]\u2014maybe it was three minutes, but it felt like 20 minutes. He wanted to know who I was, how old I was, am I religious. We talked about symbolism and martyrdom. He knew full well why I was doing it. Finally, he said, \u2018I think it would be a very good image.’\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David LaChapelle went with a more familiar religious icon for his 2006 photoshoot with Kanye West. West was going through his own troubles at the moment, having declared that \u201cGeorge Bush doesn\u2019t care about black people\u201d at a Katrina fundraiser several months before. \u201cI wanted to make it look exactly like the DVD cover of The Passion of the Christ<\/em>,\u201d LaChapelle said<\/a>, \u201cright down to the individual thorns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Sometimes text is all you need.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Esquire<\/em><\/strong> (October 1966)
\u201cOh my God\u2014we hit a little girl.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time<\/em><\/strong> (April 8, 1966)
“Is God Dead?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Esquire<\/em>\u2019s harrowing 1966 feature story from John Sack, in which he received permission to train with a company at Fort Dix and follow them to Vietnam, George Lois stripped away both color and imagery, letting that one nightmare-like quote carry the page. \u201cThe cover came out and six or seven senators got up and said, \u2018How dare Esquire<\/em> do this, they\u2019re traitors!\u2019\u201d Lois said<\/a>. \u201cSo that was a bombshell, that was the first real anti-war cover, the first time a magazine dared. It was the young people who were the biggest fans of Esquire<\/em>; they understood the humor and the anti-establishment feeling of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months before Esquire<\/em>, however, Time<\/em> magazine gave their cover much the same treatment to ask a big (maybe the biggest) question: Is God dead? The story from Time<\/em> religion editor John Elson didn\u2019t say either way, but that didn\u2019t stop the issue from becoming a lightning rod for the general public\u2019s outrage. The magazine received more than 3,500 letters to the editor; it also gave Time<\/em> its best newsstand sales in 20 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. There\u2019s power in the eyes. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

National<\/em> Geographic<\/em> (<\/strong>June 1985)
Afghan Girl<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The<\/em> Face<\/em><\/strong> (July 1990)
Kate Moss<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National<\/em> Lampoon<\/em><\/strong> (January 1973)
Styled by Melanie Ward<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This legendary cover portrait of an Afghan refugee by Steve McCurry launched a mystery\u2014who is she? As the editors of National Geographic <\/em>wrote in 2002, \u201cHer eyes are sea green. They are haunted and haunting, and in them you can read the tragedy of a land drained by war. She became known around National Geographic as the \u2018Afghan girl,\u2019 and for 17 years no one knew her name.\u201d But in 2002, McCurry, with help from the magazine, managed to relocate Sharbat Gula<\/a>, now in her thirties, living in a remote village near Tora Bora devastated again by war, only this time an American one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1990 cover of “The Face,” which helped launch the career of a sixteen-year-old Kate Moss, feels as if it were announcing the launch of Cool Brttannia. But photographer Corrine Day\u2019s recollection of the shoot isn\u2019t as idyllic as Kate\u2019s smile would have you believe. Moss locked herself in a bathroom, crying, because she was asked to go topless. “I see a 16-year-old now and to ask her to take her clothes off would feel really weird,” Day later said<\/a>. “But they were like, if you don’t do it, then we’re not going to book you again.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ronald Harris\u2019 photograph of the dog, Mr. Cheeseface, was also difficult to capture, though thankfully far less exploitative. \u201cThe shot was extremely hard to get,\u201d managing editor Tony Hendra recalled for The Guardian<\/em><\/a>. \u201cWhen the dog looked straight out at the reader he simply appeared victimised. Then someone had the notion of actually pulling the trigger. The dog reacted to the noise and this was the result.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a very sad, strange coda, it appears that Mr. Cheeseface eventually did die at the hands of a gun-wielding man in Vermont<\/a>, sometime in 1976. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even in an age of declining print runs and disappearing subscribers, the magazine cover still has the power to shock and surprise. In fact, as our lives become increasingly digitized, magazine covers can feel like one of the few fixed…<\/div>\n

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