Simplistic Styles

Magazines can be overwhelming. Standing in front of the rack at Lehigh's Barnes and Noble, I felt like my eyes were being torn in every which way by the busy covers. Allure wants to tell me "What's Beautiful NOW" and Women's Health says, "SHRINK YOUR BELLY," among a multitude of others. Most of them have attractive women on the covers with differently sized and colored text surrounding them.

Amidst all this visual stimulation, my eyes kept wandering to one specific magazine. A magazine with a trademark yellow border. National Geographic.

I tried to look away. I fought myself. "I don't want to write about National Geographic," I thought. "It isn't any fun."

But that yellow border sucked me in. And it wasn't just the yellow border, I realized. Unlike most of the other magazines, National Geographic's cover was distinctly minimalistic. The cover image was a fox's face, centered, against a snowy white background. The very top of the page lists three articles inside. The magazine's title follows, centered. Finally, the headline and deck for the cover story. The bottom half of the cover is completely devoid of text.

I don't know if it's just because I hadn't eaten anything yet that morning, but that simple cover was much easier to swallow than the others.

With that said, I don't believe National Geographic put any less thought into their cover than any of the magazines. In fact, they may have to deliberate even more. With such minimal information on the cover, they have to be absolutely confident that their main story will be able to draw in readers. In this case, I would say they succeeded. The cover story, "Designing the Perfect Pet: Can a fox become man's best friend?" will appeal to just about anyone who has a pet, and that, of course, is a large number of people.