The best magazine covers ever?
(The Guardian Culture News)

A new book celebrates the creative mavericks behind the glamour of postwar magazine covers and explores the magic of a dying cultureAs a teenager in 1960s Belfast, I fell in love with magazines. They introduced me to a community beyond family and school. They were seductive and aspirational. I remember seeing Rolling Stone for the first time in a Belfast boutique in 1968 while wondering if I could afford a Ben Sherman shirt. It was a revelation, voicing a cultural shift that I only hazily understood but knew I wanted to be part of. I bought the magazine, not the shirt. Little did I know, its co-founder, Jann Wenner, would be my boss 24 years later.Like any business, a magazine´s first job is to make money for the owner, and that has traditionally been done through advertising and copy sales. The newsstand cover is crucial in this and the industry has spent millions over the decades trying to find the magic cover formula. Some titles have come close, such as the US weekly People, whose covers have been calibrated with particular brilliance. Continue reading...