Cover Story: Cats and dogs
Following our reveal of the gorgeous new Anorak cover yesterday we had to return to it to contrast it with that of our latest Magazine of the Week Wrap. Whether by coincidence or a mutual tapping into a very surreal zeitgeist, each cover features a gang of cats crowding around a majestic dog.
If you took away the titles and asked which cover belonged to which mag, you’d probably think that the Wrap image belonged to the happy kids magazine, as Ping Zhu’s drawing has a child-like, picture book feel to it. Amandine Urruty’s floating dog cover on the other hand is fantastically weird and, as Jeremy said, out of sync with Anorak’s usual more primary-coloured covers – I’m not entirely sure what to make of the fried-egg perched on top of the floating dog-face, and I’m enjoying the Beatrix Potter vibe of the kittens. The aesthetic isn’t one we’ve seen from Anorak before, perhaps they’re asserting their visual maturity and difference from their newly released magazine for under-fives, Dot.
Two strong, intriguing front covers that demonstrate the power of figurative illustration, and how similar scenes with relatively small variations can offer a very different mood.