August 2011 Archives

9/11 Covers, Part 1: 2001

To note the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, SPD will be posting a series of collections of magazine covers published around the event. This first batch is covers published in 2001, immediately after 9/11. If you've got additional covers from that time (or from later years), please let us know and we'll add them to the mix.

(Above): The New Yorker, September 24, 2001. Illustration: Art Spiegelman, art director: Francoise Mouly.
… MORE

Cover of the Day, August 31, 2011

Welcome to The SPD Cover of the Day. We'll be posting our favorite covers every Monday and Wednesday. Stay tuned for the best and coolest magazine and newspaper covers, as selected by our stellar group of experts.

Newsweek, September 5, 2011
Creative Director: Dirk Barnett
Director of Photography: Scott Hall
… MORE

Celebrating The Times Magazine's Most Iconic Images

When you work for a magazine that produces 52 issues a year, there is not a lot of time for reflecting on the past. But that's exactly what Kathy Ryan, the longtime photo editor of The New York Times Magazine, was asked to do for The New York Times Magazine Photographs, a revealing new book to be published by Aperture this October.
… MORE

Fast News for August 30, 2011

SPD MEDIA MIX is our regular list of publication design, digital, and media news and updates. Please send your links and news items to SPD at mail@spd.org and we'll add them to the Mix.

>> Art director Laura Baer participated in the 50th reunion of the Freedom Rides, taking the place of her deceased father, Byron Baer, one of the original riders. Mother Jones has a moving collection of photos of Freedom Riders that she took on her journey.

>> Designer Mike Dempsey takes a look at the visual history of legendary UK magazine Radio Times and the state of publication design in general. His post stirred up a storm in the UK publication design community, and there's a deep comments section well worth reading, with contributions from a number of folks, including IPC Magazines Editorial Development Director (and former US Rolling Stone art director) Andy Cowles. Thanks to Magculture and Luke Hayman for the tip...

>> Illustrator Tim O'Brien has a revealing "pull-back-the-curtains" story about the creation of the new Time magazine Gaddafi cover. Our favorite part is the self-portrait he used for hair reference for the Gaddafi illustration!...

Cover of the Day, August 29, 2011

Welcome to The SPD Cover of the Day. We'll be posting our favorite covers every Monday and Wednesday. Stay tuned for the best and coolest magazine and newspaper covers, as selected by our stellar group of experts.


Vista, Issue 37
Creative director: Frederico Antunes
Designer: Frederico Antunes
Photographer: Fabiano Lokinho

Rolling Stone and the Art of the Record Review

… MORE

Six Essential iPad Apps for Type Lovers

The language of magazine design is type. Publication designers have to know a loop from an ear, a ligature from a swash, and Erik van Blokland from Mark van Bronkhorst. Aside from being a spectacular device for news apps (as Mike Burgess, Joe Zeff, Jochem Wijnands, and Michel Elings described at last month's "Indie App Night"), the iPad boasts a number of truly useful tools for letterform education and inspiration. Here's a typographic twist on our ongoing series of essential iPad apps.… MORE

Fast News for August 23, 2011

SPD MEDIA MIX is our regular list of publication design, digital, and media news and updates. Please send your links and news items to SPD at mail@spd.org and we'll add them to the Mix.

>> Web Design for the Rest of Us: Print designers: Adobe has heard your cries for help! And their answer is ... Muse. The app, whose beta version is a free download, works much like InDesign or Apple's iWeb--that is almost completely WYSIWYG--and does not require knowledge of HTML coding.

>>Newsstand Woes: Magazine sales at the newsstand continue to suffer, despite otherwise upbeat publishing news recently. The latest numbers show newsstand sales were down nearly 10% in the first half of 2011.

>>c a r s o n Minus Carson: After launching to much ballyhoo last spring, c a r s o n magazine has "imploded." The Venice-based magazine was named for its legendary creative director, David Carson. But word comes that Carson has quit the magazine after a dust up with the editor, Alex Storch. Carson and Storch have carried the feud to Facebook, posting texts, contracts, and emails from each other for everyone to see.

Cover of the Day, August 22, 2011

Welcome to The SPD Cover of the Day. We'll be posting our favorite covers every Monday and Wednesday. Stay tuned for the best and coolest magazine and newspaper covers, as selected by our stellar group of experts.


Reader's Digest, September 2011
… MORE

Cover of the Day, August 19, 2011

Welcome to The SPD Cover of the Day. We'll be posting our favorite covers every Monday and Wednesday. Stay tuned for the best and coolest magazine and newspaper covers, as selected by our stellar group of experts.

Wallpaper, September 2011
Art Director: Meirion Pritchard
Photography: Miles Aldridge
Fashion: Beth Fenton

Video with photographer Miles Aldridge discussing the shoots for the issue at West Virginia's Greenbrier Resort after the jump...
… MORE

AIGA/NY + Karel Martens: A Don't Miss Event

Wednesday, September 7th, AIGA/NY will be hosting a special evening with Karel Martens, the cofounder of Werkplaats Typografie and prolific designer; this is a rare appearance in New York, and a stellar shot of excitement to get you out of any back-from-Labor-Day-holiday slump. From AIGA/NY's site announcing the event:

Martens has been practicing for fifty years and continues to create forward-looking and technologically ground-breaking work that is comfortable in the current moment but not consumed by it. He is a highly influential book designer but considers himself more broadly a "designer of the printed word." But he's really a designer of language, even abstract and photographic language. His work extends with equal innovation and clarity of communication across almost all imaginable media, from coins and postage stamps to monoprints to ASCII art to experimental video to electric signs to textiles to building facades.

More info about Martens' work and RSVPing after the jump...
… MORE

Cover of the Day, August 17, 2011

Welcome to The SPD Cover of the Day. We'll be posting our favorite covers every Monday and Wednesday. Stay tuned for the best and coolest magazine and newspaper covers, as selected by our stellar group of experts.

New York, Fall Fashion, August 22, 2011
Creative Director: Chris Dixon
Director of Photography: Jody Quon
Photographer: Brigitte Lacombe

The cover above is one of four printed for New York's Fall Fashion issue; see the other three, all shot by Brigitte Lacombe, after the jump...
… MORE

Fast News for August 16, 2011

SPD MEDIA MIX is our regular list of publication design, digital, and media news and updates. Please send your links and news items to SPD at mail@spd.org and we'll add them to the Mix.

>> Apps round-up, pt 1: if you're still in NYC right now and not on vacation, you may need the new app from The New Yorker, a distillation of just their Goings On About Town editorial listings. Gizmodo says, "I'm Sorry Your Crappy City Doesn't Have Something Like the New Yorker's Goings On App" and from what we've seen so far, they're right. Min App Central gave it an A-, high praise around almost every part of the woods. All Things D details some of the extras involved, including audio recordings from critics and highly detailed search function. Free at iTunes here, for Android here...

Cover of the Day, August 15, 2011

Welcome to The SPD Cover of the Day. We'll be posting our favorite covers every Monday and Wednesday. Stay tuned for the best and coolest magazine and newspaper covers, as selected by our stellar group of experts.

Worth, September 2011
Creative Director: Dean Sebring
Illustrator: Brian Stauffer

Cover of the Day, August 11, 2011

Welcome to The SPD Cover of the Day. We'll be posting our favorite covers every Monday and Wednesday. Stay tuned for the best and coolest magazine and newspaper covers, as selected by our stellar group of experts.

Earnshaw's, August 2011
Creative Directors: Nancy Campbell, Trevett McCandliss
Photographer: Christophe Kutner
Style Director: Michel Onofrio
Fashion Editor: Angela Velasquez

Jon Stewart on Michele Bachmann Newsweek cover

Jon Stewart dove into this week's controversial Newsweek cover, blasting the magazine for its cover photo. We've seen this story before with their Sarah Palin covers (see also: The Closeup Cover, The Flag Cover)--not to mention the recent stir surrounding their Diana cover. … MORE

Behind the scenes with Editions designer David Robinson

Editions, the highly anticipated magazine App produced by AOL, Mobile has just hit the App store boasting the tag line "The Magazine that Reads You". It's the first digital magazine I know of that integrates tagging of a user's interests and maps content to those choices offering up a unique personalized magazine every day. Recently I got to sit down with David Robinson, Head of UX & Mobile Design for AOL to ask him a few questions about the process from a designers point of view.… MORE

Facebook Likes Indie App Publisher Push Pop Press

Facebook--Market value: $80B, Est revenue: $2B (Fortune, 7/25/11)--has aquired one of the hottest iPad book publishers on the market, Push Pop Press. The publisher made a splash recently with its highly acclaimed app Our Choice by Al Gore.

FontShop Brings 620,000 Fonts to Your iPad

… MORE

Cover of the Day, August 3, 2011

Welcome to The SPD Cover of the Day. We'll be posting our favorite covers every Monday and Wednesday. Stay tuned for the best and coolest magazine and newspaper covers, as selected by our stellar group of experts.

LOVE, Issue 6
Photographers: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott
Fashion Editor: Arianne Phillips
Model: Elle Fanning
Hair: Ashley Javier
Make-up: Kirsten Pigott

Fast News for August 2, 2011

SPD MEDIA MIX is our regular list of publication design, digital, and media news and updates. Please send your links and news items to SPD at mail@spd.org and we'll add them to the Mix.

>> ESPN Picks Fortune's Pockets: ESPN announced that John Korpics, most recently the Creative Director of Fortune magazine, has been named Vice President/Creative Director for Print & Digital Media, beginning in September.

>> 'Fear' is Major Theme at Yale Publishing Conference: "While not as easily palpable in the speakers, both lecturers and audience members rippled with it. The message was clear: get onboard or get out, because there are plenty of others to take your seat at the publishing table. This, along with the residue of the receding economic downturn and ominous phrases like 'Print is dead' and 'The Web is dead,' seem to be the publishing world's equivalent to the Rapture."

>> Atlantic Debuts Mag App 2.0: The Atlantic debuts a new app that puts a twist on the model other companies have been using. In the works for close to a year, the app shows how publishers have changed in their thinking about charging for content on tablets.

>> On the Cover of the Rolling Stone: An unsigned band from Saskatoon is the big winner of Rolling Stone's "Do You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star" contest. The Sheepdogs beat out 15 other bands in online voting to win the chance to be featured on the magazine's cover.

Cover of the Day, August 1, 2011

Welcome to The SPD Cover of the Day. We'll be posting our favorite covers every Monday and Wednesday. Stay tuned for the best and coolest magazine and newspaper covers, as selected by our stellar group of experts.

National Journal, July 30, 2011
Art Director: Jan Foerster Zimmeck
Photo Coordinator: Lauren Carroll
Photo: Ocean/Corbis