Magazine Covers

Early Magazine Covers
In the mid-1700's magazine cover pages weren't really popular, but when they did come to it's time they were modeled after books. Some magazine would even have articles starting on the first page and going back. Cosmopolitan in the 1893 was one of the first magazines to start using a cover page and table of contents. At the end of the 19th century the question was should magazine cover pages be used. Yes or no?

The Poster Cover: Pictures That Need No Work
By the early 1900's, many covers looked so pretty that they looked as if they should be framed and hung on walls. Colorful illustrations and captivating photographs became increasingly popular along with the photographers Charles Dana Gibson and Maxfield Parrish. Poster covers really show the artist side of magazine designers and less of the design principle of focus.

Pictures Married to Type
The 1900s is when magazine covers started getting more complicated. Text would be added to the front cover. The text would advertise the stories inside the magazine to intrigue the audience. With this new style came a few complications. Placement of pictures became critical because depth was needed to really make a good cover page. The 1900s was very much an experiment time. Most magazine would print out different layouts to see which cover page seemed to grab the audience more and make them want to buy that magazine.

In the Forest of Words
An overlapping effect had become very popular in the 2000s. Advertising text would cover parts of the subject in the the picture. The words would in a way frame the subject to enhance the cover page.  Good cover pages uses vivid words and interesting topics to entice the audience. Interesting people would even be asked to pose in these pictures such as actors and models to get a larger following.