I was in the grocery store last night when the new issue of VOGUE literally stopped me in my tracks. I am not a fan of Rihanna's - in fact I'm completely unfamiliar with her music and couldn't pick her voice out to save my life. So the reaction was not based on "wow - there's someone whose work I love on VOGUE!" (This is how I respond when I see Springsteen on ROLLING STONE, however.) My reaction was entirely based on the cover design - on the combination of her hair, her skin, her dress, the background, the typeface, etc. all came together to make what is truly an eye popping cover. While I stood there gazing at it (and yes I just ended up buying the damn thing because the inside was also quite pretty), I also checked out the competition. Consider what ELLE has going on:

As it happens, I am a fan of Amanda Seyfried's so this is a case where I would stop and say, "Huh, I know her. Wonder what she has to say." But that's as far as I got because honestly there is not a thing about that cover that makes me want to pick it up. The background is too starkly white and it makes the pink pop - and not in a good way. More importantly, when you look at all the fashion/lifestyle magazines on the rack, ELLE does not stand out in any way from SHAPE, SELF, BAZAAR, etc. Heck the only other one that does stand out is O and that, again, is because of all the rich color.

I've been thinking about covers lately for a couple of reasons. First, I was sent the preliminary covers for MAP and was able to weigh in on some technical issues (designers do not know airplanes) but overall they were great largely due to the mix of deep color that is used. Also Saundra Mitchell had an interesting post up recently on the evolution of the cover for her upcoming YA historical THE VESPERTINE. It began with a killer illustrated cover that was nothing I've seen in YA. So of course, it had to change:

There's a feeling in the industry that illustrated covers are for juvenile and middle grade novels; photographic covers are for young adult novels. And a lot of people have a say on the final cover.

After a lot of discussion in-house and with some book buyers, people felt that a cover with Mr. Lantz's extraordinary art fell too close to illustration.

The final cover is very nice but also very typical for the age group. It looks, basically, like every other non-vamp (meaning it's not purple and black) cover in the teen section. This doesn't mean bad things will happen to the book; it could sell perfectly fine (after all, teens are quite used to these covers). It does seem to me though that the publisher has lost a chance to do something extraordinary and reach beyond their preconceived notion of the marketplace. (I won't even get started on how idiotic I think it is to suggest an entire age group of readers should have similar covers regardless of interest/genre.) Basically, Mitchell's publisher went for the ELLE standard and missed out on the magic of VOGUE.

ETA: If you read the comments at the Mitchell post you'll find that the idea seems to be teens have internally coded illustrated covers to mean MG - so they won't even pick them up. Again, I find all of this to be a self fulfilling prophecy from start to finish. Are some photo covers excellent? Sure. But so are some illustrated ones. It's sort of like saying that romance readers must have pics of attractive men and women on the cover - except for Nora Roberts who is the top romance author in the country. Or how about all those teens who bought Philip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy - with illustrated covers. Or the sad manner in which the Harry Potter books were ignored by teen readers because of their covers. Except they were picked up in droves. You get the idea.

My point is that it wasn't always photo covers for teen readers and standing out (as in this month's VOGUE) can often be a very good thing. It would just require publishers to be brave and frankly, I don't think that's something they've been that good at for a long time.