Magazine’s Eliot Spitzer “Brain” Cover Awarded Year’s Top Cover, Best News Cover, and Top Coverline
San Francisco, CA (October 6, 2008)—The best magazine covers of the year were unveiled today at the American Magazine Conference in San Francisco by David Willey, President of the American Society of Magazine Editors and Editor-in-Chief, Runner’s World. Categories include Cover of the Year, Best Celebrity Cover, Best Concept Cover, Best Fashion Cover, Best News Cover, Best Leisure Interest Cover and Best Personal Service Cover, with special recognition of the year’s best coverline.
AND THE WINNERS ARE…(View the cover image gallery at www.magazine.org/bestcover).
• Cover of the Year – New York, March 24, 2008: Eliot Spitzer’s “Brain”
• Best Celebrity Cover – Texas Monthly, May 2008: Willie Nelson and guitar
• Best Concept Cover – The New Yorker, February 11 & 18, 2008: “Eustace Tillarobama”
• Best Fashion Cover (Tie) – New YorkLook, Spring 2008: Catwalk; Vanity Fair, September 2007: Gisele Bündchen
• Best News Cover – New York, March 24, 2008: Eliot Spitzer’s “Brain”
• Best Personal Service Cover – TexasMonthly, June 2008: “The Top 50 BBQ Joints in Texas”
• Best Leisure Interest Cover – New York, June 30, 2008: “The Summer Issue” (John McCain and Barack Obama at the Beach)
PLUS: Best Coverline
New York, March 24, 2008: “Brain”
A total of 94 magazines participated in this year’s Best Cover Contest, with 62 entries in the Cover of the Year category, 35 entries in the Celebrity category, 27 entries in the News category, 17 entries in the Fashion category, 41 entries in the Concept category, 29 entries in the Leisure Interest category and 25 entries in the Personal Service category. The Best Coverline honoree was chosen from the entire entry pool. A total of 236 entries were received. Eligible cover dates of this year’s entries ranged from August 1, 2007, to July 31, 2008. The Best Cover Contest is now in its third year. Only members of ASME and MPA were eligible to enter the competition, which was judged by a panel comprised of 30 magazine editors, design directors, art directors and photo editors.
The American Magazine Conference, the premier industry event for top-level magazine executives, is hosted by Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) and ASME. Visit www.magazine.org for event highlights.
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COVER OF THE YEAR
WINNER
One of the biggest stories in New York this year was the fall of Governor Eliot Spitzer, after the stunning revelation that he had patronized a prostitution ring. New York’s March 24, 2008 cover treated the scandal in a bold yet disarming way that managed to make news itself—telling the story of the governor’s fall with a wry and unflinching point of view. Looking for personal, opinionated perspectives on the topic, the magazine solicited visual commentary from artists, graphic designers, and advertising creatives, providing them with five photographs of Spitzer to work off. Artist Barbara Kruger’s graphic interpretation on Henry Leutwyler’s photograph—the word “BRAIN” in a bright-red box with an arrow pointing to the area of Spitzer’s anatomy that seemed to have been thinking for him—was quickly selected, thanks to its directness, humor, and simplicity. The cover required no headlines. The image succeeded powerfully all by itself.
Finalists:
• Interview, June/July 2008: “Andy is 80!”
• The New Yorker, October 8, 2007: “Short Stance”
BEST CELEBRITY COVER
No celebrity in Texas is as iconic as Willie Nelson. This issue marked the seventh time Texas Monthly featured Nelson on the cover—more times than anyone else. Over the years, the covers watched him go from being a breakout country sensation in 1976, to a tax-evader in 1991, to a senior citizen in 1998, to a symbol of Texan humor in 2002 (he and Kinky Friedman posed for a riff on the painting “American Gothic”). When it came time to design the cover of this issue, which commemorates his 75th birthday with a massive oral history, Nelson’s longevity posed a challenge: What could be done that had not been done before? Ultimately, when photographer Platon came back from Nelson’s ranch with this incredible shot, the decision was made. Cover type seemed irrelevant: For the newsstand, a small “Willie at 75: The Oral History” was placed to the right of his face; subscribers received a cover with no type at all. This turned out to be unquestionably the most popular Nelson cover for the magazine. Within a week it was besieged with requests for posters or prints of the image, a sure sign that it had managed to capture the musician’s incomparable celebrity.
• Latina, March 2008: Jessica Alba Quote cover
• T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Spring 2008: “Talking Dirty” George Clooney
BEST CONCEPT COVER
Winner:
For this year’s anniversary issue of The New Yorker, artist Seth reinterpreted Rea Irvin’s classic Eustace Tilley image to produce “Eustace Tillarobama,” a two-headed playing card image that featured the leading Democratic presidential candidates dressed as the New Yorker icon, sharing his famous monocle. Half of the run featured Obama on top and Clinton on the bottom; in the other half, Clinton had the upper hand.
• TIME, April 28, 2008: “How to Win the War on Global Warming”
• Vanity Fair, May 2008: Madonna Green Issue
• Wired, November 2007: “Manga Conquers America”
BEST FASHION COVER
Winner (2-way tie)
New York Look, the semi-annual fashion magazine from the editors of New York, announced itself with a bold, graphic, black-and-white cover for its inaugural issue. In an age of instantly available and ubiquitous runway photos, the cover presents a catwalk photo readers have never seen before, shot by Magnum photographer Paolo Pellegrin. Pellegrin captured the beauty, chaos, and drama of Fashion Week with the fresh eye of an outsider. Fashion covers are usually staged, highly produced affairs. This cover was unmistakably fashionable but used documentary photography to tell its story—and the stunning artistry of the picture perfectly captures what was special about New York Look’s singular approach, covering the collections rather than the clothes—looking at the fashion shows as a phenomenon, rather than a simple showcase for a product.
For Vanity Fair’s fashion cover, world-renowned fashion photographer and portraitist Mario Testino shot supermodel Gisele Bündchen wearing a flashy Robert Cavalli dress for a feature on Brazil. Styled by Michael Roberts, the cover of Vanity Fair’s annual Style Issue conveys luxurious electricity. The integration of type into the contours of the limousine draws the reader, in an almost tactile way, into the cover itself.
• Departures, March/April 2008: International Style
• GQ, March 2008: Eric Bana
BEST NEWS COVER
Winner
New York, March 24, 2008: Eliot Spitzer’s “Brain”
• The New York Times Magazine, July 27, 2008: “Children of God”
• The New Yorker, March 17, 2008: Clinton-Obama 3a.m. phone call
• TIME, May 19, 2008: “And The Winner Is…”
BEST LEISURE INTEREST COVER
The cover of New York magazine’s 2008 Summer Issue, with presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama seemingly relaxing on the beach and fist-bumping, falls in the magazine’s tradition of humorous covers to capture the carefree spirit of summer. The power of the cover comes both from having two candidates in the unlikeliest of places doing the unlikeliest thing, and from the seamless, painting-like execution. Photographer Andrew Eccles shot two body doubles on a studio set, then chose the perfect head shots of the candidates, with meticulous attention to lighting, expression, and angle, to complete the photo-illustration. Like all successful leisure covers, the Summer Issue makes readers smile, and makes them want to have fun.
• T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Winter 2007: “Drift Away” Lake Tazawa, Japan
• The New Yorker, April 21, 2008: Three layer cover of a couple on the move
BEST PERSONAL SERVICE COVER
Every five years Texas Monthly goes out on a limb and proclaims the 50 best barbecue joints in Texas. The BBQ issue is the magazine’s most popular (and controversial) service franchise. This year it rocked the boat by picking a little known restaurant for the number one spot. The boldness of that decision led the magazine to make equally bold moves on the cover. Last time out it had featured the portly pitmaster at one of the state’s most venerable restaurants, grinning as he sliced a sausage. This time, TM elected to use something even simpler—a pile of smoked meats on a butcher’s block with a carving knife plunged in a brisket. The coverline is presented as an iconic BBQ joint neon light and hung on a beat-up wall; the sign’s electrical cord shows behind the magazine’s logo to capture the down-to-earth feel of barbecue. The spatial dynamics of the room created a perfect hierarchy of type, with the secondary coverlines sitting in the shadowy area on the front of the meat block. Not surprisingly, this is on track to be the magazine’s best-selling BBQ cover ever.
• New York, November 12, 2007: “Airport Hell and How to Escape It”
• Wired, June 2008: Cutting Carbon
BEST COVERLINE
• The New York Times Magazine, June 1, 2008: “Martha. Oprah. Tyra.*”
• Wired, April 2008: “Evil/Genius”
Visit ASME’s Best Cover Contest gallery at www.magazine.org/bestcover.
The American Society of Magazine Editors is a non-profit professional organization for editors of print and online magazines edited, published and distributed in the U.S. Established in 1963, ASME currently has about 900 members nationwide. Among other things, ASME provides an opportunity for magazine editors to network with their peers. ASME works to preserve editorial independence and speaks out on public policy issues, particularly those pertaining to the First Amendment.
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