“In the 20’s and 30’s and on into the 40’s and even 50’s and 60’s the image on a magazine cover was all important, and standing out from the competition on the shelves was regarded as fundamental to its success. Stunning ‘Poster Covers’ as they were called were fêted by every magazine from Vogue to Vanity Fair, Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar, and of course Life magazine in photographic terms.

“Over time however the ‘Poster Cover’ and its defenders in the magazine’s Art rooms began to slowly lose favor to the philosophy of ‘cover lines‘ and what would begin as a whole new direction in magazine cover design. This I think can also be seen as a sure sign of the rising influence of marketeers and advertising suits within a magazine’s boardroom and the increased marginalization of its art department’s influence. The magazine cover had become in many cases no more than a grotesquely enlarged small ad.”

Continues here.