Layout and Design II: Covers

[Alfred Urrutia]

--- Peggy Wilkins <mozart@lib.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> I would like to continue commenting on issues of layout and design.
> This particular topic -- Playboy covers -- is one that I feel is very
> significant.
> 
...
> 
> Many of us regular Playboy readers have reacted strongly and
> unfavorably to the recent decline of the classic Playboy cover.  The
> great majority of current covers appear as if they were designed by a
> marketing committee: they are most often laid out in accordance to a
> rigid formula.  The motivation for the formula would seem to be
> marketing surveys that have determined what sells generic magazine
> issues; and then featuring those top selling points as prominently as
> possible.  In this formula, the celebrity du jour is typically
> starkly
> posed against an indistinct background with contents copy in very
> large caps along both sides from top to bottom.  This is not to say
> that all Playboy covers are like this; I know that they are not.  But
> certainly most of them have followed this formula for the past
> several
> years; and certainly too many of them for my taste.
> 
> One derives two conclusions from this formulaic design:
> 
>  - Playboy is celebrity driven; little else matters.
> 
>  - The editors believe that few will buy the issues without being
>    "caught" by a particular blurb promoting the contents (as
>    evidenced by the large font and overwhelming placement of the
>    contents type).
> ...


I would basically agree, but for a slightly different reason.  I'm not
too concerned with the amount of type or it's font.  I mean, so long
as I can read it (no contrasting colors that vibrate in my eyes) and
get what's inside I'm not too concerned.  What I miss, personally, are
the setups.  The cool pictures of the (usually) women.  You're right,
too often it's just a celebrity caught in the face of a 10,000 candle
power spotlight.  How hard is that?  I enjoyed the older covers with
the models in interesting poses, thematic settings (full settings, not
just the right outfit for Valentine's, Christmas, etc.) and more
natural expressions and make-up.  I remember an early '80s (maybe late
'70s) college girls issue and the girls on the cover were "caught"
screwing around in their dorm, I think.  Nude, or in underwear, I
can't remember, but discretely covered so as not to offend
anyone. Beautiful.  I wish they'd do more of that.

While I like Flaunt's covers I think they're too out there for a
Playboy try.  I'd just like to see the types of covers that you'd wish
you could buy without the lettering on them more often.  Lately it's
been "this month's celebrity" in an setting that even the most
near-sighted person could tell was that person.  Those aren't bad,
persay, but not all the time.  More of the cool shots, that's all I
ask for.  The lettering is an unfortunate necessity.

But wouldn't it be cool if, along with the themed settings, the
lettering was incorporated in the setting?  So, going back to a cover
with 2 or 3 girls caught going about their lingerie-covered business
in their dorm, the "Stephen Hawking Interview" blurb was comped onto a
t-shirt hanging on a chairback so it looked like the shirt was
actually printed that way?  And maybe a "Girls of the Pac-10" was
comped onto a wall to look like a poster on their dorm wall?  And
maybe some suggestive items in said dorm to intrigue the reader.  Sort
of like an advanced "where's the bunny head" game.  Like Rush's
"Moving Pictures" album cover where the movers are moving pictures
into a gallery, the pictures are dramatic ("moving" pictures) and
they're being filmed moving the pictures ("moving pictures" as in
movies).  Stuff like that.  And comped so that the foreign issues, if
they used that cover, could comp the text in their own languages.  Not
every issue, but like Peggy says, have some fun with it.  Earn your
check instead of boring the shit out of yourselves and us.



Alfred.

=====
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"It was on the floor!"

- Lou2, on why he was unwilling to re-cram a rose into his
 ass for a second BA photo during Clu's wedding reception.

Alfred Urrutia                     rampagingsloth@yahoo.com