Magazine Covers Through the Years

 This week I was intrigued mostly by the change that Graphic Design seemed to undergo once it reached America.  Now, I shouldn't be quoted on this, but I felt that a lot of magazine covers up until this point were mostly mashes of abstract designs and typefaces (though that could just be an impression drawn from images meant to specifically illustrate those points).  Those early magazines were about as far from the covers we see populating the check-out shelves at grocery stores as, well, computers to the original print machines.

 So I wanted to cover some of that change as I saw it.

 I chose Seventeen for two reasons:
     The first is that it was created by a woman for women, or young women.
     The second is Cipe Peneles and the simple fact that I really liked her cover and wanted to use it.

 Without further ado, let me tell you a little about Seventeen.

 The magazine was created in 1944 when Walter Annenberg, the publisher of magazine Stardom, approached Helen Valentine about how to sell his magazine to a younger audience.  Valentine took the opportunity and ran with it, creating the first magazine directed specifically at a teenaged audience.

1940s
  These covers were pretty simple.  Basic images of young women, the magazine name, the issue date and cost, and occasionally the title of that particular issue.

 

1950s
  We start seeing hints of what's in the magazine.  Those little teasers of what might make you want to buy it.  But the text and the photos still pretty much have their own space.  Some overlap is allowed, but clearly you're supposed to see the text, and the photo as separate entities as much as still part of the same whole.

 

1960s

 

1970s
  Please keep in mind that I'm working off a Google search, and not Seventeen archives, but I wanted to point out that the 70's was really the first time I started to see these really close up shots of the girl's faces.

 

1980s
  There were a lot more of these really close up face shots coming up in the 80's, which means that there's a lot more overlap between the photo and the text.
  Also, this is where I start recognizing the people on the covers.  Like, hey, Molly Ringwald.

 

1990s
  We seem to have gone back to the body-shot.  But now the text is on both sides of the cover.

 

2000s and Now
  This was definitely the hardest part: finding covers from the 2000s, and not from 2010 on.  In the end, I just gave up.
  A few things to note about these new covers is that the text is still mostly on one side of the page or the other, but it's no longer stuck in those neat little columns.  Now it's everywhere, seems rather fitting for today.

  

 

 Also, if anyone is interested, I did some background research on Seventeen and found this article particularly interesting.