Is it possible to create a recipe for the perfect magazine cover?

In the wake of the launch of Printed Pages Autumn 2014, Editor James Cartwright wonders and worries about the secret of designing a great magazine cover and asks for any handy hints you might have. Do him a favour and add your thoughts in the comments section below.

Recently I’ve been finding myself spending increasing amounts of time on a blog called Magazine Wall. The concept is a simple one: gather together the covers of recently-published titles the world over and paste them into an endless grid. There’s some curation there of course – we’re not talking new issues of The Radio Times or Grazia joining the ranks of Wonderland and Zeit Magazin – but of the titles known for their design sensibilities it’s a pretty exhaustive list.

Currently there’s Ralph Lauren smiling cheekily from the cover of Port, a living bust shrouded in gloom from a recent New York Times Magazine, the rock hard abs of Lenny Kravitz making me feel inadequate on Vanity Fair and (my personal favourite) a weight-lifting elephant balanced on top of an insect on the inaugural edition of The Loop. Wait, scrap that, I’ve just had another scroll and Grey’s got Charlotte Rampling smoking a fag, draped in faux fur. New favourite!

In short, it’s a bloody jungle out there, with literally hundreds of magazines vying for your attention on the newsstands and even more entering our consciousness via the online world in which we’re all so completely immersed. And the endless scroll of Magazine Wall barely scratches the surface, providing only a suggestive cross-section of the plethora of titles available for your delectation.

So how do magazine publishers make themselves seen? This is something that perplexes me daily, and one of the reasons I find myself constantly returning to this tumblr, or refreshing Gym Class’ Instagram feed, catching up with Jeremy Leslie’s posts on MagCulture or simply rifling through the shelves of well-stocked Soho newsagents to see what the competition have done now – what neat visual tricks they’ve played to grab my attention an make me part with the last tenner in my wallet. I’m looking for that recipe!

Every time we put together a new issue of Printed Pages, the thing we deliberate over the most, after the content, is the cover. What’s the brief? What’s the colour? What does the image suggest about the content? Photography or illustration? Who’s shooting it? How are they shooting it? Does it register from a distance? Is there enough detail to keep your attention up close? Has anyone else done something similar recently? It’s bloody knackering. And to make it worse there’s titles out there like The Gentlewoman, Fantastic Man, The Gourmand, WAX and Kinfolk who make it all look so easy.

They seem to have discovered the secret to a dramatic exterior that whips fans into a frenzy every time a new issue is released. Each one maintains the same format for each issue, making subtle changes to keep things fresh. They’ve got famous cover stars, tasteful photographs, abstract illustrations and tranquil idylls between them, and each is completely distinct from the other, but they’ve all arrived at what seems like a surefire method for success.

The Gentlewoman is arguably the most famous for this trick. Every new issue features a unique accent colour and a monochrome shot of the cover star; pastel pink for Angela Lansbury, a deep red for Vivienne Westwood, sky blue for Beyoncé and black for Lea Seydoux. So far so good. But then they did turquoise for the latest issue with Robyn and that illusion of perfection was shattered – from a personal standpoint at least. I HATE turquoise. I hate turquoise but I think Robyn’s great – but I still don’t want to pick up the new issue, because, did I mention, I hate turquoise. Which means I’m back to square one as far as working out this recipe goes. I thought The Gentlewoman had it nailed, but even they can’t please everyone.

So perhaps magazine covers, like most things, are wholly subjective and there’s simply no secret to success. Maybe it’s just a mixture of strong aesthetics, a suggestion of individuality, creating something that feels of the moment and then a whole lot of luck. Or maybe you guys out there know different. If you do, let me know and put me out of my misery. Answers on a postcard. Thanks!