A fabulous, must-read, article in today’s Globe & Mail by Simon Houpt, on “The posterizing of the Media”. Click Link To Read:
“The much hyped–indeed overhyped–death of print is spurring a renaissance in cover design,” says Houpt.
Houpt goes on to document Tina Brown’s successes, and failures, with respect to Vanity Fair, New Yorker, Talk and now Newsweek. He then moves on to talk about how Time magazine and Bloomberg Businessweek’s covers are getting way more edgy, with an eye to capturing the interest of televison, the web, and bloggers, to magnify and re-circulate the buzz.
Houpt references Time magazine’s recent cover featuring a breast-feeding blonde mom, as a shot across Tina Brown’s bow. Brown’s response? “Let the games begin”. This focus on provocative covers just gets more and more interesting.
“Since its redesign two years ago, Bloomberg Businessweek has become a rare business publication that puts whimsy and creativity up front, even as the covers capture a moment,” says Houpt.
All this positive focus on magazines, and covers being used as a way to define our place in the media landscape, is extremely refreshing.
