Celebrating 'cover-ups'

This isn't a mint-fresh podcast. But it's more than worth a listen if you're interested in magazine cover designs. Stack magazine's podcast, Jaap Biemans, Coverjunkie, is a freewheeling discussion between the multiple award-winning art director and 'addicted mag fan' and Stack founder Steve Watson.

'Designing covers is an intuitive way of thinking, a way of observing and questioning the subject, choosing to avoid or emphasise preconceptions,' explains Biemans. In the podcast, he talks about how he designs with a small team, but 'definitely not the author of the story'. The best mag cover is the one that punches you in the face or when you wanna lick it, ahah! And the 'surprise!', that's a very important element of a cover, he explains.

Biemans discusses how he started Coverjunkie, an online project that has been collecting the most creative and original covers since 2010, a shout-out to visual culture's brightest moments, all accessible in one place. He wanted to showcase the 'good magazine covers' because many believed that 'print is dead'.


What does he admire? 'When a title creates 30 or more ace covers a year. It's easy to produce one good one. But you're king when creating 30+ good ones.'