American Society of Magazine Ediors has an award for magazine covers (here) and surprisingly the finalists barely have any coverlines. Maybe they should publish the newsstand numbers so we can see how these fare, compared to the normal slathering of bombastic coverlines.
That Texas Monthly cover Platon shot of Willie should go in the hall of fame it’s so effing good.
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I have a copy of that Texas Monthly tucked away. Platon took some other great shots of WN in his saloon in Luck, Texas. There are a couple of other photos from the shoot in the archives at http://www.texasmonthly.com Very, very cool.
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Good point about cover lines. I didn’t think about that. I know that in the case of the Latina Jessica Alba cover, there were two different covers. One with copy for newsstands, one clean for subscribers. I am pretty sure the Texas Monthly Willie Nelson cover was handled similarly.
Newsstand numbers likely don’t relate well to cover quality. I saw some figures for the BradJolina cover of People magazine, and it was one of their best sellers; not what I would consider a nicely shot cover image.
@ 2. Daryl: I have no idea whey everyone doesn’t do this for their subscribers. It’s like a couple hundred bucks to change the cover plate on press and we could never convince the owners to go for it. Looks so much better.
Just my armchair research, of course, but it seems like a cover with no subheads on it denotes a special issue of some kind – like a break from the usual offering to show some respect to the cover image/story.
I usually pick up a copy of Rolling Stone when there’s an image and no lines (Cobain, Obama, etc.). Now, I don’t buy it, but it’s the only time I’ll actually pick it up. Does that sound about right?
And DAMN that Platon! That’s just a beautiful image, right there. I’d love to hear the story behind that shoot (kinda like his Putin story)…
If magazines could survive on awards alone, the editorial community would be a much better place.
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