Cover Review: Organic Gardening
I’m a big fan of the August-September cover of Organic Gardening, art directed by Susan Eugster and featuring an illustration by Peter Donnelly. I’ve reviewed the cover as the latest Face Up column for Folio online.
This is a very different approach for a gardening and lifestyle magazine, with the illustration taking over the entire cover, right down to a redrawing of the logotype. With its simple, bold colors and whimsical style, the illustrated cover feels more like something from a children’s book than a gardening magazine, but that’s just fine with me. I think it’s a bright, bold and forward-looking statement, a design that sets the magazine apart as distinctive and original. Its style feels homespun and yes, organic, and just right for a magazine that has cover lines about bees, honey and sustainable wearables.
What’s going on here? Has Organic Gardening decided that it’s the natural lifestyle version of The New Yorker? I love the magazine’s recent cover illustrations, and they do remind me of some of the beautiful New Yorker covers from the 1960s and 70s, before their covers got much cooler and more topical.
