Notes Design

These selected covers are from the table of contents from Newsweek’s post presidential issue. Here are some of the things that are fascinating to me about this selection:

1. Hillary Clinton’s portrait cover is fairly close to the camera, followed by Michelle Obama’s slightly farther away portrait, and Cindy McCain’s most remote portrait. Sarah Palin’s portrait photo is so large/close up that it’s actually larger than life.
2. Once Sarah Palin entered the race, she appeared on no less than three covers.
3. John McCain is rarely smiling in his cover photos. Barack Obama is smiling widely in three of his covers.
4. John McCain is significantly taller than Sarah Palin on their joint cover. However, most photos show the two candidates as much closer in height. For example:
   
5. The cover of Barack Obama is the only one completely in black and white (emphasis mine)
6. The symbols shown with the candidates are: McCain: Naval uniform; Palin: Rifle; Obama: Flag.

Is there a discernible bias here? I find this especially interesting because I designed covers for Newsweek in 1995 during the Clinton/Dole race. We were tasked with remaining absolutely objective, including not retouching Bill Clinton’s cover photos (he had noticably bad skin and bloodshot eyes with dark circles underneath), and making sure that the matching covers of the presidential/vice-presidential teams were the same size. I am sure that those directives remain today.

I think this collection shows how hard it is to design in a completely neutral way, especially when the subject is so loaded for the designers. I think the Newsweek designers are excellent. I also think that there’s a lot beyond what meets the eye.

See more 2008 election covers: http://www.newsweek.com/id/166340