The VIP Factor in Magazines
May 4, 2007For years I have been telling my students and my clients that the Visual Impact in Print (the VIP factor) depends on marrying the photography with the typography to create a visual impact that will stop you and make you pick up the magazine. Well, today while scanning the newsstands I found a great example of how not to achieve that impact. In fact it was just the opposite. The cover of the new special from Cook’s Illustraded magazine on Summer Grilling & Entertaining stopped me in my tracks for the complete wrong reason. Summer grilling screams the name and berry pie screams the picture… My brain kept showing me images of a grill and barbecue and my eyes kept showing me a delicious cold pie ready to eat…confused by the mixed messages I started to walk away, but then I remembered it is a first issue that I need to add to my collection plus, I thought, it will make a great blog on what NOT to do with your magazine cover. Well check the cover for yourself. It is grilling below this blog…
Mr. Magazine 
This is crazy! Why would they put a pie on the cover of a grilling magazine? Would it have been better if they were absolutely stuck on the pie to maybe put it on a table among delicious grilled summer meal?! Would that be the correct way to do it? To me using the VIP factor for Magazines is a lot like in creating an Ad campaign…Am I understanding it right?
This is crazy! Why would they put a pie on the cover of a grilling magazine? Would it have been better if they were absolutely stuck on the pie to maybe put it on a table among delicious grilled summer meal?! Would that be the correct way to do it? To me using the VIP factor for Magazines is a lot like in creating an Ad campaign…Am I understanding it right?