The cover of a magazine is the single biggest determiner for sales. But what happens when editors use a terrible cover? Life magazine admits its 20 most confusing ones.
Magazine covers
Celebrities: burnt out as cover stars
Supermodels ruled the magazine stands of the 1990s and celebrities took over the front covers for the last decade. But the public mood is shifting and the movie stars have lost their shine, says the mag industry.
Video of the Day: Finding the Afghan Girl
National Geographic journalists explain how they tracked down one of the magazine’s most iconic cover stars — the “Afghan Girl” — 15 years after she first drew the world’s attention to the plight of Afghani refugees.
PHOTO GALLERY: Women’s lib: as seen through 70 years of Newsweek covers
Newsweek takes a look back at its most iconic depictions of “women’s history” over the magazine’s 70+ years of history.
Stephen Colbert: America’s favourite covergirl
Why would Sports Illustrated make comedian Stephen Colbert its latest cover star? Because he’s pure sales gold, already generating huge sales boosts for the likes of Rolling Stone, New York, Wired and Newsweek.
Silvio Berlusconi: Rolling Stone‘s Rockstar of the Year
The Italian edition of Rolling Stone magazine has named Playboy PM Silvio Berlusconi as its “Rockstar of the Year” for his “lifestyle worthy of the greatest rock star.”
Newsweek go rogue with Palin cover
Newsweek has caused a big stir this week by running a cover photo of Sarah Palin — clad in rather tight running gear — taken from a Runner’s World photoshoot. Palin herself has labelled the move “sexist”. Is it fair to use editorial photos out of context?
Rolling Stone‘s Obama named Cover of the Year
A Rolling Stone cover featuring Barack Obama has been named Cover of the Year by the American Society of Magazine Editors, beating out Bernie Madoff as The Joker and perhaps the most delicious looking cover ever for the honours.
The most controversial magazine covers of all time
They’re the cover stories that made cover stories: some of history’s most shocking and scandalous magazine covers, from Hitler as TIME’s Man of the Year to Ellen’s “coming out” to Michelle Geller’s “zombie arm” in Seventeen.
The Ted Kennedy cover wars
Naturally, every newsweekly worth its salt ran a commemorative Ted Kennedy cover last week. Mediaite wraps the contenders and grades each publication’s attempts to pay tribute to Teddy.
Do gimmicky covers pay off?
As reluctant advertisers demand to be wooed with more creative and outrageous ideas, an increasing number of magazines are producing gimmicky sponsored covers, using 3-D graphics, videos and “augmented reality”. But beyond the buzz, are they actually increasing sales or ad revenue?
