Magazine exploration

When I started my search for cool youth-full publications I had low expectations. I didn't think there would be much out there in the way of great design. They usually just put the really hot girl on the cover, yada yada yada. As soon as I stepped into chapters the magazines with unique style and personality began to leap out of the book shelf. Right off the bat I learned two lesson. There are a ton of highly designed magazines out there and its not going to be easy to be original. Secondly I learned you need to be unique, original and eye pleasing to get picked up.

This doesn't mean that content is not important, but it is my feeling that covers are what draws people to pick up a magazine. After that, they see if its worth purchasing. But if the publication is free, there is no decision weather to take it or not, its a no brainer.

As I started to look closer and try to pick out what really made somthing I felt was strong in design. The most obvious things to start with is photography. The nicest and most modern covers are very light on the typography so as to let the pictures do the talking. This si of coarse my own opinion. It could be argued that text heavy magazines are eqeully apeealing. but during this session of exploring I was much more impressed by magazines that relied on the picture to talk and the title is more of a label than the reason why the magazine is going.

This almost feels like a step away from brand loyalty and a step towards a diverse magazine battle ground, fighting for the attention of readers. It gives way to a new generation of magazines that compete on a visual level with the big dogs that have held court in the editorial publication realm for so many years.

I noticed every genre has atleast one very nicely designed magazine. But of about 30 genres 4 yeailded the majority of nicely designed magazines Fasion, life style, architecture and of coarse design. These are the 4 genres I based my photo documentaion on. Here are my findings.