Rolling Stone Cover Designs

 Rolling Stone is a bi-weekly magazine, based and founded in San Francisco which has been in publication since 1967. It is highly respected due to it's continuing quality and that level of quality is apparent in the often simple but always appealing designs of its covers. The magazine is mainly music based although also features political reporting as well as stories on other forms of media such as movies and television and the covers reflect this with the celebrity on them usually being a music star with the occasional tv or movie star taking their place.
The image to the left is the standard example of a Rolling Stone cover, a full body shot of a  pop star, in this case Taylor Swift, against a white background, surrounded by text, in front of the magazine title with their head obscuring part of it. This formula is changed up slightly every so often. Sometimes the celebrity photo may just be a shot of their head or from the waist up, sometimes the background might be more grey then white but it is always close enough to the tried and true formula that the brand is instantly recognizable to potential customers while on the shelf. Older issues had the title sat in front of the celebrity and it was often presented in different colours. Over the years however they have established a brand witch includes red typography for the title. This has now became so iconic that they are able to obscure it with the celebrity photo so that the subject of the magazine takes priority as that is the reason the casual buyer will spend money on it. They are able to do this however, safe in the knowledge that as long as some of their logo is on show, people will recognize the magazine. Because of this the loyal buyer and the casual shopper will be drawn to the magazine immediately. Very occasionally, usually upon the death of a very influential celebrity (such as Steve Jobs, Johnny Cash and Lou Reed) all conventions will be thrown out and instead an image witch is an appropriate tribute will be used. In all three examples the cover featured a head shot of the celebrity in question looking directly into the camera against a dark background. In the case of Lou Reed it was a photo of his younger self which had been given colour to signify his personality and music as that of a wild rebellious and colourful nature. Johnny Cash's tribute issue used an old grainy black and white photo of him looking particularly haggard, which again, reflects his music and personality. It is the Steve Jobs issue however which is of most interest as it is one of the only instances in the magazines history in which no photograph at all is used and instead a digital painting is employed which is fitting given the mans career as a the CEO of Apple Inc.


Images Taken From:
http://cbsnewyork.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/rolling-stone_taylor-cover-r1168cover.jpeg
http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980w/public/2013/07/19/jim_morrison.jpg?itok=Pimi6nY1
http://img004.lazyboys.info/people/kurt_cobain/kurt_cobain_kurt_cobain_rolling_stone_cover_jpg_jpeg_image_406_500_pixels__VIXvDXec.sized.jpg
http://returntofleet.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/rolling-stone-cover-steve-jobs-by-richard-davies-turksworks-art-graphic-design-digital-illustration-painting.jpg
http://www.laweekly.com/imager/are-rihannas-booty-shorts-photoshopped-on/b/big/2461262/159b/Rihanna_Rolling_Stone_Magazine_Cover_540x747.jpg
http://grandcentralblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/aguilera1.jpg