Every page is memorable, every image unforgettable, every moment meaningful. Take a tour of the entire twentieth century through the more than 500 of the most outstanding magazine covers from around the world--Look, Life, Der Spiegel, and Paris Match among them. Each one stands witness to an era when magazines kept headlines to a minimum, allowing the pictures to speak for themselves. From political figures to fashion to movie stars, from depictions of daily life, 100 years of imaginative and thought-provoking design unfolds. Such titles as Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, and Vogue set the styles with the greatest artists; Andy Warhol's Interview later showcased cutting-edge art direction and images from photographers, such as Francesco Scavullo. Here, too, are refined, witty, and often satiric drawings from The New Yorker and Norman Rockwell's nostalgic paintings from The Saturday Evening Post. See how journals throughout the world portrayed a monster (Adolf Hitler), key heads of state (Khruschev, De Gaulle, Kennedy), two world wars, the Beatles and Vietnam, and royal weddings (Princess Grace, Princess Di). From Punch and Playboy to Time and Jours de France, it's an amazing, sometimes joyful and sometimes sober, look at life in the last century.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This eye-popping coffee table book features a bizarre assemblage of images, ranging from the psychedelic 1970s covers of the now-defunct French pop culture magazine Actuel, to a Life magazine cover from 1944, with Charles de Gaulle in uniform, gazing out above the photographer's lens, to a portrait of a suave-looking Robert Redford on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1980. It's a stirring collection. After a brief history of magazine covers in particular and the press in general, the editors share covers from 28 American and European magazines, picking ones that favor splashy art or provocative photos over headlines and captions. They then analyze trends in graphics, including caricature in Pop Art; hightlight cover themes (such as transportation, propaganda and fashion); and point to people who have set records for the most cover appearances (including Grace Kelly, Hitler and Princess Diana). The well-produced color and b&w illustrations offer a dazzling representation of the last century.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
A history of the world in the last century as described by the front covers of international magazines. Covers are designed to sell magazines, so at any given moment, in any given week or month, the view of the world from the newsagents' racks will tell you much about contemporary obsessions. And as the images on the racks change, as one month's issues replace the last, you can observe changes not just in fashion and media, but in current events and the magazine industry's understanding of its customer base. A fascinating historical document recording the changing self-image of the world in the media mirror from the Russian revolution to the age of global terrorism. Will appeal beyond the specialist market of students of commercial design to anyone who measures the passage of time with issue dates.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Newsstand favorites,
This review is from: Front Page: Covers of the Twentieth-Century (Hardcover)
I have read reviews of this book in the media suggesting it is a history of the twentieth century through magazine covers. I don't see it like that, rather a visual history in two chapters, of twenty-eight leading consumer magazines from Europe and the USA. The first chapter covers the twenty-eight titles with a good choice of covers and text explaining the history of each one. Playboy and Esquire mix it with Fortune (eleven super designed covers) Stern and Punch for instance.
The second chapter called Trends is the one that I think readers will find the most interesting. It looks at styles and techniques of cover design and finally at people on the front page. Some of these covers could be considered historical as they feature politicians like Churchill, Stalin, Hitler and Charles De Gaulle, or celebrities like Marlene Dietrich, Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe (shown on a spread with forty-eight) or Sophia Loren. Magazine folk will enjoy this well designed book because of all the covers. I can recommend another book, 'Cover Story' (ISBN 0811808165) which has two hundred American titles from 1900 to 1950 in a beautifully designed paperback. Perhaps the definitive book on the subject is the sumptuous 'Great Magazine Covers of the World' by Patricia Frantz Kery, out of print but worth looking for because it has five hundred covers from twenty countries, in a word, stunning. ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
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