The growth of digital, they say, is killing print. But editors the world over are rising up to the challenge — going niche where necessary (with themed volumes), exploring the various possibilities of a tactile medium like paper (with experiments from laser cut to gold foil), and designing covers that can become a collector’s item.
A little while ago, The New Yorker took a break from the norm and teamed up with artist Christoph Niemann for a cover that explored virtual reality. The illustrator and graphic designer’s work, ‘On the Go’, let users enter an animated three-dimensional city with the help of an app. Elle , on the other hand, kept it classic: to announce their redesign in 2016, it released a fully embroidered cover (one of four) created by Claire Barrett of London-based Hawthorne & Heaney. Closer home, Architectural Digest stuck a sculpture by contemporary artist Rana Begum on its cover. “Her work sells for tens of lakhs, and our cover looked exactly like one of her large-scale pieces. I have it framed in plexiglass on my wall,” says Greg Foster, the editor, who believes such innovations go a long way towards ensuring print remains relevant and exciting today.
Texture and frames
This week, AD is upping the ante — with a textural cover designed with concrete. The July-August issue is an homage to BV Doshi, the 90-year-old architect who recently became the first Indian to be awarded the Pritzker Prize in architecture. “I had the idea two days after he won the award (in March),” says Foster, who then took it to Doshi in Ahmedabad. “He loved it, and later he designed the cover for us, with the motif of a section drawing of Sangath, his office.”
The edition also has several other highlights, including a photoshoot by Iwan Baan, one of the world’s most important architectural photographers. “He’s shot virtually all of BV’s buildings in Ahmedabad, and even had his drones go up for a beautiful story on the city from a bird’s eye view.”
Money makers
As it turns out, such innovations in print can also help publications explore new ways of revenue generation. Like the British design magazine, Cabana . “They use a clever model; they actually sell their covers to a fabric brand. I think that is interesting when you think of the future of magazines, because brands always want to be associated with interesting, exciting ideas,” says Foster, who teamed up with Atmosphere for AD ’s fabric covers and Asian Paints, for the production of their latest cover. “We will balance out the innovative covers with normal ones. But even then, the cover photos will be epic,” he concludes.
Textile love
Last year, AD released their Craft Issue, which featured five handmade covers. “The idea of a fabric cover is not new, but we were the first to do one where there is an intervention with something handmade,” says Foster, adding he has had many calls from people trying to track down all five. “The AD logo was hand-embroidered, while the fabrics were hand painted, tie-and-dyed and block printed (eight times) by designer Maximiliano Modesti’s karigars, the same people who work with Hermes interiors and Azzedine Alaïa.”
They’ve got it covered
Two magazines that push the design envelope
Cabana: The London-based, highly collectible design magazine is known for its covers — created with wallpapers and fabrics from the likes of Gucci and Fornasetti. Their latest features fabric from American home fashion brand, Kravet.
Wallpaper*: They are known for their experiments. One of the most memorable ones recently is the collaboration with Thomas Heatherwick. The engineered double cover featured a trellis-like opening system that pulls out to form one of the architectural models designed by the British designer.