Weekly Cover: LA Times Magazine

I'm quite behind on this one. The Los Angeles Times Magazine was redesigned several issues back, perhaps taking cues from The New York Time Magazine. The results are breathtaking, particularly this cover featuring Mad Men's Christina Hendricks. Inside the design is crisp and clear. Seeing newspaper magazines like this bring tears to my eyes. In Australia our newspaper supplements couldn't be more dull. Thankfully there are exceptions to the rule: The Australian Financial Review Magazine; and Sport & Style. Back to the LA Times website for me.

Weekly Cover: Time

Time is one of the great magazine titles on the planet. For many years Time has been presenting the facts in an easy to read and clear format with imaginative covers. The current design is clear, clean and elegant. It's hard to pick a favourite cover as their are so many worthy examples, as illustrated here. For now, I've chosen this one as the Weekly Cover. Time's website is well worth a daily visit.

Weekly Cover: Sport & Style

I am quite surprised to be writing about how much I enjoy Sport & Style magazine. I am in no way, shape or form interested in sport. Absolute zero interest. So it is with wonder that I actually look forward to every new issue. The covers are often striking and inside the design is exciting, fun and yet classic. Sport has never looked so good.

Weekly Cover: Vogue Paris

For my money Vogue Paris is the best of the Vogues. Under Carine Roitfeld, Vogue Paris is what fashion should be: glamourous, wild, exciting and edgy. October 2010 marks their 90th anniversary. I can't wait to see it. In the meantime, why not check out their cover feature.

Barbara

Every now and then I find a magazine that someone else has doodled in. I wish I could find them more often as I cherish the artistic creations inside. I found the drawings in this New Idea to be rather amusing. The doodler gave Mrs Bush devils horns and a Hitler moustache.

Weekly Cover: TAR

I'm quite into this cover from art magazine Tar. It certainly grabs your attention and puts Kate Moss into a new light. Is there a reference to Madonna's video clip for Four Minutes.

Weekly Cover: Esquire

Originally, I was going to choose my favourite George Lois Esquire cover for this post. However, I got side-tracked by the amazingly good Esquire Cover Archive. The image I would have chosen is this one, had I not been astounded to find this fellow's blog post featuring women shaving on magazine covers.

Weekly Cover: Nest

In Winter 2004 Nest ceased publication with its 26th issue. This cover is from the 15th issue, which illustrates the daring originality and design the magazine became known for. With each new issue the rules were rewritten with cover shapes changing and the design inside becoming wilder and wilder. The full collection is cherished here at Flipfactor.

Weekly Cover: T, The New York Times Style Magazine

This week the feature cover is T, The New York Times Style Magazine. The 2008 redesign is elegant and modern, yet classic. I'd love to get my hands on one, but for now I'll make do with the on-line version. I love this cover for it's simple boldness. Check out many others here.

Weekly Cover: Elephant

New-ish from the makers of Frame and Mark is art magazine Elephant. High production values are a given, elegant design expected and content that intrigues seems like an added bonus. What I love most about Elephant is what I discover in its pages. There is a sense of surprise, sometimes shock, but always great interest. It's this week's Weekly Cover because it has made roses work well.

Weekly Cover: Archive

We were pleased to pick up a few back issues of Lürzer's Int'l Archive recently. While a number of covers stood out, this one was easily our pick. Is it a tongue or sauce? It really doesn't matter, this is a clever, not to mention fun cover that sticks in the mind. While Archive is tailored to the advertising industry, there is much inside to excite and intrigue. Check out the back issues here.

Mess with marriage...

We started the week with a 1976 The Australian Women's Weekly cover featuring Prince Charles. With a new weekly cover about to appear, we thought we should close the week with a doodle featuring Prince Charles, but this time with Princess Diana by his side. Our doodler stumbled upon The Weekend Australian Magazine [3-4 April 2004] and added his or her flourish. The original image is captioned "Mess with marriage and marriage will mess with you." Judging by the scribe, we think our doodler was no fan of royalty.

Weekly Cover: Women's Weekly

Back when The Australian Women's Weekly was weekly and with Princess Di nowhere in sight, Prince Charles appeared alone on this cover from 1976. As far as covers go from the era, and considering the market, we think this is quite an interesting cover. The Israeli Army Diet cover line intrigues us - we'd be happy to shed half a stone. We're also pleased to report that the Weekly has chosen to put Australia's first female PM on the cover, Julia Gillard. We hope she wins this Saturday.

Weekly Cover: étapes

French design magazine étapes brings into focus the best of graphic design. Their covers are often intriguing with striking cover imagery that can be challenging, or like the example above, beautiful with a slightly disturbing edge. I only wish my French was better.

Creative capers

Flipping through The Australian Women's Weekly some months ago, I was delighted to stumble on this rather artistic reworking of a Nicole Kidman portrait. It's a striking use of texta and highlighter that would do Arlene TextaQueen proud.

I made this

Wallpaper* magazine recently gave readers the opportunity to design their own cover for their August 2010 issue. From a limited range of options a surprising array of covers resulted.

Weekly Cover: Design 1966

This week we go back to the June 1966 issue of Design, a magazine produced by the then Council of Industrial Design in London now known as The Design Council. This simple black and white cover image by Sam Lambert is balanced by the Design masthead in orange with just a single cover line.

Weekly Cover: Fantom

We welcome Fantom, a new photographic magazine from Italy. Issue 02 features Octopus Portrait by Yumiko Utsu. We think it could be a contender for cover of the year, and possibly make it into the top ten covers ever. In the meantime we can't wait for the next issue to hit the stands.

Popular yet banal

The Australian version of InStyle celebrated ten years of publishing with their April 2010 issue. The grid above shows all their covers to date. I'll admit here that I've never been a fan of the magazine, celebrities and their frocks are simply not enough to garner my attention for too long. I wonder why the cover images above bore me so much? Is is that all backgrounds are white? Is is that the format never changes? With one exception, John Travolta (the only male) appears with partner Kelly, cover images are all the same: glamourous celebrity wearing expensive frock smiling at the camera, and all from behind big words.

Weekly Cover: Interview

In September 2008, Warhol's Interview hit the stands with a bold new look and one of the best covers it has had in many years. Inside the design is truly inspirational and beautiful to boot. We love it, even if it does take twenty-seven flips to find out what's inside, and a further twenty-one flips to get to the first editorial feature.

Weekly Cover: Woman's Journal

Our first post is the August 1964 cover of Woman's Journal magazine featuring these adorable ginger kittens, David and Jonathan, photographed by Camera Clix. Each week, usually on a Monday, we'll be featuring a great magazine cover from the history of magazine publishing. The cover may be topical, contemporary, pertinent or simply one of our favourites.

A found drawing

We thought it might be nice to share a chuckle. We came across the July 2010 issue of Voyuer, complete with drawings made by a bored flier. While it as it the expense of a beautiful blonde, the drawing which surely was inspired by the 'hoofing it' heading nearby, is amusing. Elsewhere, a beautiful model gets a beard, there's a good drawing of a Lego man, and another woman gets a moustache and a nose strip - now that's random. We also liked the subtle eyeliner applied to Tom Cruise on the cover, making him that little bit more devilish.

Welcome to Flipfactor

We're in the set-up stage, and while we're working at a furious pace, it may take longer than we think. So if you've landed here and not much is happening, why not check out our sister site, Turnstile? We think you'll like it, maybe even love it. And if you do, tell your friends.