The IPC Editors’ Group’s winning covers of the month for October are Chat, InStyle and Rugby World, with Chat voted the overall winner. Editorial development director Andy Cowles explains why the IPC Connect weekly got the vote:
I do wonder about the ease with which Chat’s editor Gilly Sinclair peels off her brilliant coverlines. ‘My bum needs its own sofa’, ‘Sliced Off! I castrated my evil dad’, ‘Saved from the pot! What a lucky plucker…’. It all seems to suggest an imagination that frankly, I’d rather not know too much about!
Much like a tabloid newspaper, in a real-life weekly it’s often the words are the most important visual component. It is they that create images in your mind, they that deliver colour, and they that determine the layout of the page.
Right from the very first issue (Knit your own Royal Family!) Chat’s lines have always been a shrewd blend of knowing gags, weird shit and truly shocking ideas. It’s voyeuristic, nihilistic, and often entirely unrealistic. Like its readers, it really does live in the moment, as evidenced by the genius strapline: ‘Life! Death! Prizes!’
But the world is becoming ever more visual, so Chat has responded with this new and significantly improved cover design. The key decision is to make the lead story image the canvas that carries the splash line. It’s subtle, but very effective in establishing the primacy and cut-through of the lead story. There are fewer stories overall, only five against the market’s usual six, but they have more room, and are well detailed, so there’s no loss of value.
The ‘new’ messaging is worth noting also. As well as the monster blob top left, the new franchises are continually labelled as such, allowing art editor Rob Plowright-Taylor to let the whole package literally crackle with a sense of excitement.
InStyle is the IPC Southbank cover of the month, with its elegant and understated Rosamund Pike cover. InStyle was also the overall winner last month, and I have been remiss in not posting on it back then.
InStyle UK is one of many international editions of American InStyle, and as such faces real tensions when it comes to deciding how far it can deviate from the original brand proposition. In the US, InStyle is a massive brand, due in no small part to the fact that their biggest domestic celebrities are massive Hollywood A-listers, as opposed to the UK’s motley crew of soapstars, reality TV judges and glamour girls.
Editor Eilidh MacAskill’s big success has been to take the US formula and dramatically reinvent it for a very demanding British audience. She’s made the magazine cool, whilst retaining a high level of fashion service, celebrity style and beauty know-how.
This cover follows the same pattern as last month’s excellent 10th birthday issue. An immaculate colour palette, a cover star with genuine fashion authority, and the confidence of new art director Adele Chidwick in using white space to convey a sense of quality and true value.
Rugby World is the IPC Inspire cover of the month with this genuinely startling presentation of Johnny Wilkinson. I love this cover for the fact that it really looks modern! The lines are in a well chosen font, macho, but contemporary. The picture, well, Johnny appears to be wearing some sort of medieval snood. Bang on trend, I’m sure.
But the killer play is the great confidence around the use of colour, blue in this instance. Art editor Kevin Eason has moved away from the downward drag of an always red logo and fully engaged with the idea that every cover must look both timeless and timely in equal measure. Really good work.
Follow Andy Cowles on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!andycowles1