Cover of the Week: Gardener's World, March 2011 issue

So Gardener's World is 20 years old - I can remember the panic in the office I was working in at the time when news of its imminent launch filtered out. I was working on a homes mag at the time so wasn't going to be affected, but the guys working alongside me on a marginally successful gardening mag were definitely not happy.

I've always felt that the way BBC plugged its own mags to death on air at launch was wrong and made otherwise mediocre products into market leaders purely by dint of the free publicity they received. There is no way, for example, that Gardener's World at launch was as good as the Emap's Practical Gardening, which despite its title was the most beautiful gardening mag every produced in the UK in my view and was at its best in the mid-90s.

It's editor at the time was the scary Adrienne Wild. I made a complete hash of an interview for a job with her back in the 90s - I arrived sleep deprived after a very late night in Liverpool watching football and was miles off the pace under 'Wild fire'. Shame - though their offices in Peterborough had to be just about the ugliest publishing HQ I've ever seen.

Anyway, I digress. The point of this post is to praise the cover of the 20th birthday issue, which was really leaping off the shelves at me from 10 yards away this morning in my local M&S. White space is a rare commodity indeed on a gardening magazine cover and this was a brave decision by art editor Guy Bennington. With Alan Titchmarsh guest editing this issue, the temptation to use a big pic of the insufferably smug Mr T must have been huge. Credit to Guy for resisting the obvious solution and going instead for the graphic option.

The Ride magazine

Happiness is discovering a magazine that makes you think 'I would love to edit this'. The Ride is the first mag this year to make me feel that way. Massive respect to hugely talented brothers Philip (editor) and Andrew (art director) Diprose at Own It! for their creation. Andrew will be known to many of you already as the art director of the awesome Wired UK edition.

Philip kindly gave me the lowdown on the magazine earlier this week shortly after issue five went on sale - here's what he had to say (this is a multi-part post so please read all parts to get the full story!):

So why launch a new magazine?
 'The Ride Journal came from a couple of friends who wondered if we could do something a bit different to the cycling magazines that were out there. We’d been riding long enough to not need to read about this season’s new bike, where we should ride or who'd won the last race. Instead we wanted something which concentrated on the riders themselves, something that told the stories they had to tell. Personal, human, passionate. Bikes have changed people’s lives in so many ways and we wanted to gather a small selection of these tales.

How did the first couple of issues come together?

'With the following issues we had something we could show to people. We could let them see where there work would appear, and who they would appear alongside. We also started getting emails from people who wanted to be featured in the journal.

'Once the seed was sown we spread the word to people from all across the globe. Initially we wondered if it was just us who wanted to see such a journal; evidently we were wrong. From all kinds of riders we began to get favourable responses. People asking why this hasn’t been done before and how they could join us? A snowball effect took place and what was planned to be 80 pages soon grew into the beautiful monster sized journal. To begin with we thought it would be a one off, and put in everything we had but as soon as it was out people were asking about issue two.

We’ve never been in this to make money, just to give something back to the world of cycling. And to help give back a little more we donate all profits from the journal to a variety of charities. It makes it easier to ask a photographer or writer to donate their work for free when you can tell them you’re not making a penny yourself.  But we never sell the journal as a “charity” magazine, we’d hate for someone to buy it for any reason other than the great stories and stunning visuals.

'It's usually about 8 months between issues but there is no set time. We only print when we are ready, which is the joy of a non-commercial magazine. We have as little advertising as possible (only to nearly cover printing costs) and are able to chose a size and paper stock that would normally be commercial suicide. I’m always surprised at how long it takes to get the issue completed. I think its like buying a house, by the time the issue is out I’ve forgotten how much work it took and it seems like a good idea to start on the next one.'

Cover of the Week: Wired UK, March 2011 issue

Only five weeks into a new year and I'm raving about a Wired UK cover for the second time already in 2011. As so often in the world of Wired, highly-talented editor David Rowan has been grappling with a cover concept that has no obvious visual to bring it to life.

This month it's privacy and the subject of how much to share (or not) online is tackled in three outstanding essays inside the mag.

The cover David has come up with (image left) has a fabulous 3D quality to it, the face of the reader ripped off to reveal the main coverline - 'Your Life Torn Open'. I'm a big fan of coverline symmetry (I'm borderline OCD and think this spills over into my work at times!) so I really dig the four supporting coverlines positioned on the corners of the main image. Way to go Mr Rowan...

A limited number of copies of this issue have personalised covers featuring personal details culled from the web about the mag subscriber receiving it (image right). I'm really intrigued by personalised covers and would like to bring this approach to my own mag in 2011 if the right opportunity arises but I can see a fair number of readers getting freaked out by this if we step over the line.