You know the saying: You can’t judge a book by its cover. With magazines, it’s pretty much the opposite. The cover of a magazine is the unified identity for a whole host of ideas, authors, and designers who have created the eclectic array of stories and articles and materials within each issue. And, some would argue, this identity extends to the reader as well. If you’re seen with an issue of Vogue, you don’t just own that copy—you become a Vogue reader.
Magazine covers are a challenge to design, since they have to be both ever-changing and also consistently recognizable. For this reason, most publications stick to a standard set of practices.
This is the anatomy of a magazine cover, starting from the top. Literally.
The most obvious example is that the name of the publication is always plastered across the top, so that you can identify the brand from the get-go.
After the brand name, the second objective is to relay the new-ness of the latest issue. Magazines want to be sure that readers know that they don’t have this particular issue yet. There are a few ways to do this, but a good method is to use different colors month to month. Even if the covers look pretty much the same otherwise.
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