Aug 27, 2014

Cover Review: Wax Poetics

So many indie magazine covers look sleepy and dull, like the tabletop art books they emulate. Fortunately, there’s Wax Poetics, whose covers are brilliant splashes of imagery, that resemble old-fashioned LPs filled with engaging brightness and poster-like impact.

Case in point: the latest cover, issue #59. It features a photo by Jonathan Mannion of Aaliyah, the young R&B singer and actress who tragically died in a plane crash in 2001 at the age of 22. Creative director Freddy Anzures treats each cover as a graphic work of art, with minimal cover lines (in this case just Aaliyah’s name) and simple typography. As with all Wax Poetics issues, there’s so much goodness that they need two covers. Like a classic LP, you can flip the A-side over and there’s a second cover on the back, this one featuring contemporary R&B singer Kelela (photographed by Yev Kazannik).

I’ve reviewed these latest covers for Folio: online’s Face Up column. What I really like about this Aaliyah cover so much is that it’s simple, graphic, and iconic. It’s also designed to engage its audience on every possible platform.

Read the full review here.