Lenticular battle for Der Spiegel cover

I’ve been meaning to put these images up since I bought this copy of Der Spiegel in the week before Germany’s elections last month. It’s the best use I’ve seen of a lenticular cover. Titles such as NME , Sleaznation, Top Gear, Empire and Shine have all used lenticular covers before but this one has a very strong editorial logic behind it rather than doing it for the effect or a celebration issue (Rolling Stone celebrated 1,000 issues with a lenticular cover to give a 3D effect).

As you tilt the cover, the stuck-on sheet shows either Angela Merkel or her then rival for the German chancellorship Frank-Walter Steinmeier in the seat of of power.

Underneath the lenticular sheet is an illustration of the two, who had been sharing power in a coalition for the past few years – which the German news weekly is clearly fed up of.

The words at the bottom translate as a plea to the voters: ‘Please, not again. Germany before the election.’

Tech Radar has list of cover innovations.

Magazine covers: pastiche, flattery or laziness?

How original was this?

Jeremy Leslie has had a go at repetitive covers and SPD has picked up on him. There’s a similar selection of other people’s ideas at Magforum. And here’s another pair:

Cover from the sixties classic title Nova

Art deco weekly London Life from 1935

Future of China’s Caijing in doubt

The future of Caijing – China’s most influential business publication – is in doubt after its general manager Wu Chuanhui resigned and rumours flew of the editor and other staff quitting, the FT reports.

Martin Sharp and Oz at it again on Ebay

Oz 3 poster by Martin Sharp

A copy of the third issue of Oz – the underground trippy title that brought Felix Dennis to fame – from 1967 is zooming up the Ebay charts with 10 bids reaching £122 – with 6 days to go. Expect a flurry at the end.

This issue has a three panel fold out poster by Martin Sharp and Souvenir Century, the seller, lists the the contents as:

Revlon Invents Wet Lipstick on the reverse. Beautiful Breasts competition. Mike McInnerney graphic, and ‘Tripping and Skipping They Ran Merrily After the Wonder Full Music…’ – Warren Hinkles on Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters and the Acid Tests. ‘Last Exit to Brewer Street’ – article on publisher John Calder. ‘Why Politics is Giving Everyone the…’ – girl-on.-toilet-on-Parliament 2 page photomontage, and ‘An Address to politicians’. Protest Postcards to politicians. Pop and Drugs sections. ‘In Praise of Ugliness’ by Colin MacInnes. Magnificent Failures. Frisco Speaks – Sharp cartoon.

They don’t make them like that any more.

Hasselhof hassled in Standard

Nice coincidence in today’s London Evening Standard. In the last issue of the paid-for paper before it goes free on Monday is a story about an award for The Gun, a pub in Coldharbour:

One of its regulars was Lord Nelson, and according to tradition, he used one of the pub’s upstairs rooms for secret trysts with lover Emma Hamilton. In more recent times, Baywatch star David Hasselhof has frequented the pub several times.

A few pages away is a picture of said TV actor alongside the headline ‘More hassle for drunken Hoff as he hits doctor‘. The paper reports he had been drinking ‘for days’.

BBC leads magazines in culture push

BBC Music

Fifteen magazines have got together to promote themselves as the Cultural Publications Group and intend to distribute 1.3 million leaflets in magazines and newspapers over the next few weeks.  The leaflets will push a subscription website, offering discounts ‘from 28% to 100%’. Seems an odd strategy: say how brilliant you are and then discount like mad.

The titles involved are: the BBC’s Music Magazine, Countryfile, Focus, Lonely Planet Magazine; Geographical, Granta, Guardian Weekly, History Today, London Review of Books, New Scientist, The Oldie, The Spectator, The Week, Time and the Times Literary Supplement.

From GQ ancestor to E pluribus unum

US seal on Wikipedia

Trivia of the day from a 2003 book review from the FT:

Who would have thought, for instance, that E pluribus unum, the Latin motto on the Great Seal of the US, should have been taken from the title page of a magazine that eventually became GQ, that bible to men’s fashion?

A new one on me, but the writer, Philip Coggan (who later went off become Bagehot in the Economist) must have got it from the book he was writing about, Greenback: The almighty dollar and the invention of history by Jason Goodwin (Hamish Hamilton).

Wikipedia has more than one derivation, but one does involve a magazine. Though how you trace a line from The Gentleman’s Magazine at the time of the published at the time of the US revolution to GQ looks a tad tricky.

FT’s How To Spend It goes online

The new website for How To Spend It, the monthly luxury magazine for the Financial Times, goes online tomorrow.  The advent of  Howtospendit.com – which dubs itself  ‘The world’s most luxurious website’ – coincides with the 15th anniversary of the magazine and promises a “highly innovative and visually stunning digital format”.

The design was handled by Razorfish and uses Adobe Flash 10 to translate ‘the glossy magazine reading experience into a convincing luxury online environment’ with a 3D viewing format.

The website will feature exclusive online content:

• Van der postings: Lucia van der Post, launch editor for the original magazine, is the new star columnist;
• The Aesthete – a new magazine column about the world’s tastemakers;
• Technopolis TV – magazine columnist Jonathan Margolis with weekly video bulletins from the world of gadgets and technology.
• Reconnoisseur – daily insider intelligence from magazine contributors.
• Daily gift guide launches in November
• Videos of the magazine’s most visually compelling features, including a behind-the-scenes video of an underwater fashion shoot

Editor Gillian de Bono said:

How To Spend It set the benchmark for luxury lifestyle magazines 15 years ago and now we want to establish the brand as the benchmark for luxury lifestyle websites too. To this end, the print and online operations are fully integrated, produced and edited by a single in-house team using the same top-tier writers, photographers and illustrators.

Launch sponsors include Rolex, Krug and Harry Winston.

Until now, there has been a digital facsimile edition of the magazine.

Estelle hits the streets in Luxembourg

Luxembourg City magazine launches as Estelle

Luxembourg's City Magazine launches tomorrow - with a different name for each issue!

The city guide's name will change with each issue's coverstar. 

So the first issue is Estelle, while the listing supplement is
simply given the name of the month.
It comes in a 'newspaper format but with a magazine quality feel'.

The magazine is 212mm x 300mm but unfolds into a newspaper format (300 x 430 mm).

'City Magazine Luxembourg is at the printers!' is its first blog entry -
that's always an exciting time.

IPC forms central digital sales team

IPC Media is to centralise its digital advertising sales across the company, with the like of nme.com, goodtoknow.co.uk, trustedreviews.com and whatsontv.co.uk under the same umbrella.

Sam Finlay, advertisement director for IPC Ignite, will head a 27-strong team with AOL Advertising’s Harry Harcus in the advertising operations role with 12 people.