The dessert alone has one salivating. — Steven Banks, Design Director, Los Angeles Magazine, TIME Design Director: Tom Alberty It’s original, passionate, provocative and cool, and it flies in the face of contemporary modes of publication cover design and art direction. — Mike Schnaidt, Creative Director, Fast Company. Pure art, pure joy! The photo-illustration, created by Jorge Gamboa, did cause a fair amount of copyright controversy, though. From Time and the artist: The image references Floyd calling out for his mother during his arrest, as he was pinned to the ground and held down by police officer Derek Chauvin for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Editor-in-Chief: Alison Overholt. Top Women in Media Awards / Virtual Celebration. The NYT Magazine cover for June 14 addresses the realities of vaccine development and testing. But seismic shifts in the ways magazines deliver their content to readers have done little to diminish the gravity of an impactful magazine cover—as evidenced by the growing number of online magazines who continue to produce digital “covers” long after forgoing their print editions. We think it’s really worth your while. Just as editors have adjusted to hybrid print-and-digital strategies, so too have designers, who in 2018 unleashed a succession of stunning magazine covers aimed at capturing the attention of newsstand passersby and Instagram scrollers alike. Editor-in-Chief: David DiBenedetto. Although this is my favorite cover for 2018, it is the most recent of a series of progressive covers.

The colors are vibrant yet subdued; the typography is bold and compliments the photography. I’ll have seconds, please. Editor-in-Chief: Radhika Jones. They made each other stronger, unforgettable with impact. This is truly poster-like art that is consistent with work that creative director Chin Wang and her team have been producing at ESPN over the the past few years (biweekly!). Artist: JR — Robert Newman, Creative Director, This Old House, Vanity Fair Creative Director: Marshall McKinney I went with the second option.

Editor-in-Chief: Jake Silverstein. Design Director: Gail Bichler Easy as pie! It is an iconic cover, compellingly simple, but that simplicity is put to great use. A Madonna and child but as heartbreaking pietà—the cover shows a Black mother holding on to the negative space of a child created by Kaphar actually cutting into his canvas. Magazine covers seem to have reached a stage of reflection, and the August issue of British Vogue is my favorite example of this. — Justin Armburger, Art Director, GIE Media, The New York Times Magazine Tweet. — Mark Montgomery, Senior Art Director, IEEE Spectrum, The New York Times Magazine Art Editor: Françoise Mouly Editor-in-Chief: Susan Goldberg. Stay healthy, wear a mask, save a life. Editor-in-Chief: Edward Felsenthal. New York clearly understood the stakes, and thus delivered a cover that defines the mood of this tragic year so succinctly, by simply just spelling it out with a Sharpie.

The visual tension of the main coverlines, The “cast of thousands” approach is the opposite of what a cover. What more can you ask of a cover? It’s confusing, confronting and bizarre, all at once. October 15–28, 2018 The colors are strong, warm and engaging with simple pattern-making, making the most of the three special inks. It bears noting that these illustrated covers were created by Black artists whose voice is much needed at this time but whose representation in magazines has been sorely, systemically, underrepresented. Week after week, an update about COVID-19, from all angles. Check out new ‘Inspiration’ tab to apply best effect combinations or create yours. The New Yorker‘s June 22 cover, with its powerful “Say Their Names” painting by Kadir Nelson, stands out for me as the most memorable cover of the first six months. Depending on your mood, you might feel uncertainty, anxiousness, or monotony. Receive the latest news, trends and best practices! This New York cover of Stormy Daniels, in regard to a series about powerful women in 2018, is my favorite of the year. WOW! Magazine Covers; Maxim; Will you dare to fake the cover of the sexiest mag ever? ESPN The Magazine’s September 10, Odell Beckham Jr. cover is a case study in composition. National Geographic –Matt Strelecki, Creative Director, Successful Farming/Meredith Agrimedia, TIME — Dave McKenna, Art Director, 5280 Magazine, Garden & Gun We reached out to our community of magazine creatives and asked to share their favorite cover of the year. — Jeremy Leslie, Founder and Creative Director, magCulture, TIME Creative Director: D.W. Pine The New York Times Magazine, a regular presence on these lists under design director Gail Bichler, also shows up multiple times.

The rebirth of the magazine cover continues apace thanks to Instagram, where tiled jpegs fight for attention just as their paper versions always have on the newsstand. Without overtly choosing a side in a divisive argument, TNYTM showed us what any experienced researcher already knows: vaccines are complicated, hobbled by setbacks and … Artist: Mike McQuade Creative Director: Kira Pollack Editor: David Remnick. Creative Director: Chin Wang Say hello to Emolfi - the first empathic selfie app, powered by Artificial Intelligence. It’s somehow both linear and totally chaotic. Seriously, it’s not only a captivating photograph, but it’s also an incredible work in grayscale. Which is nonsense. While girls will be rushed into generating magazine covers of Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, People or Vogue, boys will most probably focus on fake magazine cover makers of Rolling Stone, Men’s Health or GQ. — Rami Moghadan, Art Director, ESPN The Magazine, Civilization I’m drawn to this cover for its power to share a glimmer of hope and joy through simple silhouettes.

Receive the latest news, trends and best practices! — Caysey Welton, Content Director, Folio: Explore the “Face Up” Year-in-Review archives: Activate Folio: newsletters for the news, emerging trends and best practices you need to succeed.

Geez, I just depressed myself. It’s striking, disturbing and is smart enough to realize the name of the magazine is secondary in importance to the subject matter, hence it being barely visible. Then Minter layers on voluptous color, saturated pinks, glossy sheen and drips of liquid. Garden & Gun knows its readership well and doesn’t shy away from their true Southern star. Add a dash of alternating colors to the headline, a complementary steel blue table, plate and fork, and that orange wedge of yum just jumps right off the cover. It’s striking how something so simple can be so powerful, especially when viewing it with hindsight. Design Director: Gail Bichler Photographer: Mark Peterson Time Out London’s “The Green Issue” Pantone cover made me smile, a rare thing these days for any cover. It’s important that we emphasize and amplify Black voices in forms of art and print alike. The cover also cuts across political lines and forces viewers to focus on the underlying issue: treating all people equally.

Selecting a single example is tough, but this second cover of AIGA’s Eye on Design magazine was remarkable for two reasons. They were us.”, — Jaap Biemans (a.k.a. Even in an age where anything can get an online feature, the curated content of magazine is full of integrity and credibility. I always get drawn to covers that evoke an emotional reaction from me. The repetition of concentric lines. By FOLIO: Magazine Staff :: December 27, 2018. Covers and cover stories had been remade at a moment’s notice as events unfolded—some showcasing inventive type solutions when either time or resources made other approaches impossible. Art Director D.W. Pine has used understated typography for all the covers in the series, and that proved to be a master stroke. Editor: David Remnick. June 14 If magazine covers are a reflection of the current climate, then Time creative director D.W. Pine—who had three covers selected among this year’s critics’ picks—has certainly tapped into the zeitgeist. The intensity of the staring eye drew everyone to it, super-focused proof of the need for eye contact on a cover. Titled “Who Gets to Be American?” this cover hits at the core of who is and wants to be an American, without flag-waving and hysterics. Can you put your face on a magazine cover for free? The “cast of thousands” approach is the opposite of what a cover traditionally requires, since there’s no single focus, but I admire the deep storytelling, the meticulous composition and gorgeous vision it took to assemble this image. And your eyes can’t help but wander all over the page. Managing Editor: Liz Stinson. As usual, these covers tell the story of 2020 through their arresting visual design and subtext.

Our photo magazine cover templates are free and come in layouts and designs suitable for different categories like food, fashion, travel, sports and more. September 3, 2018 This is a cover for the ages, museum-worthy, but also T-shirt and poster-worthy as well. Art Director: Tala Safié Artist: Kadir Nelson The simplicity leaves room for your personal experience. The powerful image works, whether one is aware of Rockwell’s “Freedom of Worship” poster or not.

This is iconic design that will stay with me for a long time. But on the other end of the emotional scale, New York Times Magazine‘s brilliant and provocative “Rise of the Far Right” cover was the most impactful I saw. Our free magazine covers and templates can also be personalized and used for fun projects and special occasions. Picking my favorite cover at the end of the year for Face Up has been something I’ve done now since 2014. Photographer: Marilyn Minter The minimal typography and delicate design elements, such as the arrow pointing at the cover line, help us focus on a bold and striking image of an iceberg which, upon second take, is recognized as a plastic bag floating in the ocean. Great stuff! October 7, 2018 There is perhaps no better example of this than its March 15 “Don’t Panic” cover. The artist JR’s “Guns in America” Time cover was the first cover in a very long while to bring me to a complete stop. “Coverjunkie“), Art Director, Volkskrant Magazine. The New York Times Magazine June 14 Artist: Mike McQuade Design Director: Gail Bichler Editor-in-Chief: Jake Silverstein. My favorite cover of this half-year also addresses Black Lives Matter with a painting, Analogous Colors, by Titus Kaphar for Time. Photographer: Amanda Demme Some of the best this year were.

Create a magazine cover nobody can take their eyes off. The New York Times Magazine doesn’t have the same hard-sell demand for coverlines, but the struggles of the newsstand environment seem to have opened doors for publishers to take more risks in type and image resulting in stunning posters for their brand. September 10, 2018 I can’t look at this cover without getting emotional. So instead of dwelling on the pain this industry, as well as this country is facing, we want to focus on some of the best cover design work of the year so far. November 5, 2018

Editor-in-Chief: Adam Moss. Thanks to travel and social distancing rules, the creative team have been unable to shoot a big fashion cover for several editions now. The image is reflective of how fast the virus spread and how quickly we all needed to respond. The New York Times Magazine series of COVID covers deserves a mention in any round-up, especially the “Who Lives? — Caysey Welton, Content Director, Folio: Caysey Welton is content director of Folio: Activate Folio: newsletters for the news, emerging trends and best practices you need to succeed.

It was exactly that extra information that turned it into something shivering. But finding my pick this time around was hard for a different reason.