Longing in Long Beach

Dear L.,

There are a bunch of great blogs you can spend too much time looking at: Cover Junkie is a great place to start your habit. The Society of Publication Designers has collections of award winners in covers and other categories as well (digital and print). The American Society of Magazine Editors also has a collection of past award winners here. The Conde Nast store has a beautiful collection to look at (and buy), and I personally really enjoy looking at Blown Covers, where Francois Mouly of The New Yorker shares the covers that never made it. 

Magazine cover design is a medium that combines graphic showmanship, editorial smarts, and salesmanship. When successful, covers have an immediate emotional effect on the reader. They are sophisticated solicitations to buy the magazine. Some magazine covers have become indelible icons and many have even helped change the way we think about the world, or just make it easier to understand the incomprehensible. The good ones capture their historical zeitgeist with visual surprise and/or editorial wit. 

Your question made me want to give you a head start of twenty of my personal favoorites, and there are many, many more. These covers all took my breath away on first sight, each in their own unique way, and each one still fills me with joy and awe. 

Readers: please help Longing in Long Beach out by adding your favorites to the comments section!

++++