In honor of this week's American Magazine conference, where ASME will be presenting an award for Best Cover, the reliably amusing Simon Dumenco is conducting his own contest for The Worst Magazine Covers of All Time.
Dumenco, of course, includes the Waterworld, the Gigli, the Mondale/Ferraro of all covers, the July 2001 issue of Rosie--with Ms. O'Donnell sans makeup, showing off her staph infection for the world. Writes Simon:
To this day I'm thankful Rosie didn't have, like, a really bad yeast infection.
Amen.
When I think really bad magazine covers, I tend to think clichés:
- the home magazine with the "Tuscan" styled McMansion on the cover (inevitably an empty, interchangeable room)
- the golf magazine with a PGA champ in mid-swing, backlit by the sun
- any modern issue of Rolling Stone with Jimi Hendrix or Bob Dylan on the cover
- Paris Hilton anything
Here's a Time cover that demonstrates why newsweeklies are going the way of newsreels:
People you likely don't recognize? Check.
People you likely don't want to know? Check.
Clichéd coverline? Check.
Cover story unclear at first glance? Check.
Cover story that your audience likely doesn't care about? Check.
Monochromatically ugly? Check.
Terrible placement of the secondary story? Double check.
Photoshop pop-out that blocks the marquee? Triple check.
Covers are notoriously difficult to get right, but I'd be curious to see what Time's editors and art department rejected as less adroit than this dog.
Today, wouldn't it make sense for magazines to put their rejected mockups on the Web and ask the readers to respond? Free market research and all that. Thousands of hours (and hundreds of thousands of dollars) are regularly spent trying to figure out what the public wants. Why not give them choices and let them tell you...for free?
Plus it might give competing art directors a laugh. They love their Schadenfreude.
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