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Cover versions and revisions (a contest, of sorts)

Ordinarily each issue's cover is among the first things which gets designed. I use its color choices elsewhere in the magazine, sometimes, and up until fairly recently our main distributor wanted to see the cover early so as to collect orders from retailers. This next issue, the one I'm playing hooky from just now, won't be like that. This time the cover will come crashing down on my head quite late, and while there is a story or two behind that, I'm not intemperate enough to tell it in public. All's well that ends well, and I better not foul this one up.

Meantime, I just cobbled together an advert for next issue in which we announce discovery of...well, the rediscovery of...enough of our oldest issues to put them all back on sale. So this is an early warning for you collectors and completists out there. It is the consequence of Peter moving across the country and Kyla readying a room for her, um, teenager, who was not even walking when we started this magazine. We won't have a lot of those early issues to sell (which, having art directed them at Kinko's, more or less, is a blessing from my point of view), but it looks like we'll have at least a few of each one.

No, I don't know today exactly what day they'll go on sale, but I'd guess November 5, since that's our official street date.

Up until our tenth anniversary, when the logo changed, I have almost all those covers in frames around my office. The rest will go up one of these days, but I've not got around to getting frames for them, and they are starting to crowd the other stuff I like to look at. Back when I lived in Nashville I was visited by a documentary crew from Germany who asked if it wasn't sort of egotistical to have my own work on the wall, and I'd never thought of it that way. It's a tradition I brought with me from the old Rocket, a way to see where we've been and what not to do again.

I have flats for most of those issues stashed in various places; for a long time now I've asked our printer to send me 20 of each one. We use them occasionally, but not often enough, and every once in a while we get them autographed to use as charity auction items. My hope is to get a batch of those trimmed out and packaged and take them to Merlefest to sell at our booth, but we'll see.

Meanwhile, I've been looking at our gallery of covers, which you can do here: http://www.nodepression.net/issues/index.php and contemplating my various sins as a designer.

For various reasons, the cover which still arrests my attention on the wall across the room is #17, and features Emmylou Harris, though you're to be excused for thinking it looks more like a harbor seal, and I mean absolutely no disrespect to Ms. Harris by mentioning that. In fact, I still mean to apologize to her. It is the product of a careful collaboration with Jim Herrington, who had found a riveting Vogue magazine cover in an old book (it's a famous cover, apparently; I found it in one of my old design annuals, as well, and would scan it and post it here if I could figure out how to insert images). It's a duotone image (two duotones, actually), and we were absolutely convinced it was brilliant. That it offered a unique way to present an oft-photographed artist, and that it would connote her ageless, timeless beauty and glamour.

That's what we thought right up until the issue ended in my hands.

And so I look up every once in a while and see those kind eyes looking back at me, reminding me not to think too hard and not ever to make that particular mistake again.

So that's my vote for our worst cover ever. But there are 71 to choose from, so far.

What's yours? Since I have a cover to design in the next couple days, I'm particularly curious. Please keep in mind that this isn't a referendum on the artists we've put on the cover, I'm simply asking about the way they look.

Posted by grant on October 3, 2007 9:07 AM | Permalink