Jezebel
A thorough piece in today's WWD is chock-full of juicy nuggets about how magazine editors create a cover that will inspire you, a potential reader, to spend your hard-earned cash on their efforts. In the '80s, Dick Stolley, founding editor of People, created "Stolley's Law Of Covers", which you already know, even if you don't know you know: "Young is better than old. Pretty is better than ugly. Rich is better than poor. Movies are better than music. Music is better than television. Television is better than sports... And anything is better than politics." Kind of like looking for a date! Of course, what works for each magazine is slightly different. For Cosmopolitan, the young lady on the cover had better get "the girls" out. "It's not about big breasts like it used to be. It's just about showing off your breasts, whether they're double As or whatever," says editor in chief Kate White. Hear that, IBTC? You, too, can be on Cosmo! (And if you look at a gallery of Cosmo covers, and you'll see almost all of the women are touching one thigh, directing attention "down there." My crotch! Let me show you it!)
Over at Men's Health, however, the dudes are covering up. In 2004, half the covers featured shirtless guys; in 2007 there was only one bare-chested man. For Allure, it's all about the best tressed. "Not only abundant hair, but the blowing hair is good for us," says editor Linda Wells. "The worst thing we can do is a really tight, pulled-back style or a hat." And over at Seventeen, some kind of flair is like, totally what a girl wants: "Every cover has to have the doodad," says editor Ann Shoket. "That is, a piece of jewelry... or something that catches your eye." But the person — or personality — on the cover is a big deal as well. Kate White says Cosmo's perfect model is "Someone that you'd love to drive cross country with, you're not going to end up arrested with and with whom you're not going to get bored." Hmm, makes sense that Ms. Lohan was a choice. And Ms. White finds a great cover uh, satisfying. "My sense of a good cover that will sell well is if I want to lick it," she says. "And the Beyoncé [December 2007] cover I licked several times... Before the sun came up." Hey, at least the woman loves her job?
Comments
"Young is better than old. Pretty is better than ugly. Rich is better than poor.
Ah yes, I love living in this age of enlightenment and reason... oh wait...
I don't know who Cosmo thinks it is. Those things sound like what Redbook should be worried about. I just want someone wearing a hot dress, which is color-coordinated to cheesy and/or awesome article titles splashed across the cover.
Is that why Beyonce's dress looks like a tongue?
God, these women are the forty-year-old "girls" the apocolypse that the SATC movie augered.
Way to go, Ann. Nothing says "I'm down with the kids" like using the word "doodad".
Lick it? Ewwwwwww...
Cosmo, as a straight woman, WHY would I want to look at another woman's breasts? Cuz I don't.
Blah, and the covers are all so boring and formulaic as a result. I actually bought that SMG-in-black-and-white Marie Claire magazine from a newstand just because I thought the cover was so gorgeously different. Now they'll never do something like that again.
@hortense: Well, doodads are the bees knees...
Um... I don't think I would ever admit to licking a picture of Beyonce. Ever. Or a magazine...
And the "Cosmo" pose always cracks me up- when I was doing pageants soooo many of the girls were getting their professional pictures done "Cosmo" style. It always made me giggle.
Mmmm... ink!
Doodad? :::Snicker:::
why would being reminded of a vagina make me want to buy a magazine?
I've said it before, but English Cosmo now looks so dull to me. Frequent trips to South Florida have made me familiar with Spanish Cosmo, and I now look totally forward to seeing SEXO!!! on the cover from one hundred feet away.
Tits and crotch don't make me buy magazines. I like some bright color, nice fonts, a clean layout and cover tags about stories that sound interesting. But then, I work in magazines and I'm a dork. That Cosmo cover is so busy it makes me a little queasy.
Hmm. because Cosmo is directed towards straight women, it makes total sense that the models on the cover look young, sexually attractive, and that they draw as much attention to the ta-tas and the vadge region as possible.
Beyonce looks like she's wearing some sort of shiny body stocking.
@biscuitdoughjones: beat me to it.
basically, the qualifications for covers are the same qualifications dirty old, divorced men use to get dates?
Before the sun came up? I'm not mad at that.
This brings to mind the scene in Lost in Translation when the call girl tells Bill Murray to "lick my stockings."
@NefariousNewt: Now you're on the trolley! Doodads are the cat's meow, and phooey and applesauce to anyone who says otherwise, see?
Beyonce is the last person I'd want to drive across country with. She'd be bitching the whole time "You know, I've been to Alabama so many times, but I've never SEEN Alabama" then I'd have to roll my eyes and say "There's Alabama...see" Bitch would work my nerves.
@bananaballs: yeah. beyonce's dress is pretty yonic there, now isn't it?
@biscuitdoughjones: yes. as a straight broad i have never gone, "oooh! BOOOBIES!" and then bought a magazine.
I'm disappointed - why does "Stolley's Law" have no formula? Surely there should be a graph at least...
i believe she meant to say "my sense of a good cover is if it looks exactly the same as every other goddamn cosmo cover in the past 5 years."
@wildside: and Venn diagrams! and vectors!
The one in that gallery of hillary duff, she is literally just circling her crotch with her hands, which in light of this "directing attention down there" bit of info, is just disturbing.
@cupcakesofdeath: hmmm. maybe i should rehash my grammar skills, but what they hell does "yonic" mean??!
@bananaballs: ah shit, what THE hell!
From my experience, covers are a battle between editors, advertising/newsstand specialists, and the art director. I think this is why Bazaar sends a different cover to subscribers; they can focus on what is attractive or artistic rather than what just sells.
I hate the Cosmo covers so damn much!
@titania1285: But it's all aspirational, y'know? The dumbest part of your brain is saying "If I buy this magazine I can look like that..."
@athertonmerriweather: hahahaaaaaaaaaaaa.
I can't think of a Cosmo cover that made me want to buy the magazine, except when I already liked the actress/whatever and could recognize her through the Cosmo filter.
@JessicaLovejoy: I love looking at the covers of Spanish Cosmo. I'm sure it's just the same old, same old ... but en Español! Even National Geographic (which I love, anyway) looks more interesting in Spanish. I wonder why that is?
@ciaomanhattan: God, you are right! There is an entire legion of 40 year old "girls" who want to wear leggings and say things like "that's yummy" (that makes me gag!) all the time. They look like Kate Hudson from the back, and like roast beef from the front, and I loathe them.
Cosmo is stupid. Just plain dumb.
If only all these magazines would come together, join forces (if you will). OH, what a cover that would be! A young, pretty, rich movie star with a lovely locks, boobies displayed, hand pointing at vagina, & a well-placed doodad. Where do I subscribe?
@hortense: Doodads are the new geegaw.
I think Anne Slowey of Elle would agree with me that the only thing better than boobies on a cover is showing a little "tootie."
@bananaballs: yonic meaning "pertaining to and resembling the hoo-ha," the yin to phallic's yang.
meaning beyonce's frock looks like she has a clitty between her titties and shiny pink labia.
@cupcakesofdeath: Eloquent! You may have kudos.
Mm, boobies.
Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
Is it because we are socialised to see this type of pic as the ultimate embodiment of femininity, and as such feel some sort of identification? Either way they totally plagiarise their own back catalogue and fuck that's boring. They must have tried it out on a focus group though. Ohh I got it, it's a whole promotion of female masterbation. Yay cosmo. See by 2012 they'll have close ups of celebs labia.
@TempleDrake:
And they go to holiday parties and (second) weddings and bar mitzvahs and want to "get down" and dance in groups with their girlfriends because their (fifty year old divorced and desperate) "boyfriends" (Should women and men of a certain age call each other "boyfriend" and "girlfriend"?) don't dance. Shockingly. Who wants to see a fifty year old divorced desperate guy "get down"? or a divorced desperate forty year old "girlfriend."
@gerbilsinlove:
I want a shirt -- a baby doll tee-- that says "DOODAD". With my rolls showing and all.
When Cosmo has hot cover dudes displaying glistening manteats and drawing attention to their artfully arranged crotch bulges, then their hilariously oversexed cover will have something to do with whether I buy it or not. But it's more likely that I will just tear off the cover and slip it in my purse, because there are so many useful things I could buy with that money. Pot, for instance. As such.
God, that one-hand-on-the-thigh thing is so weird, and as soon as I started to go though the parade of Cosmo covers, I realized how I had never payed much attention to it before, even though it looks so unnatural. I'm sure it's more for the guys in grocery store lines, but it's still so bizarre to do on a women's magazine cover.
I got a sex post, which site do I submit to?
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