The Maggies celebrate the best magazine covers from the past year, voted for by the public via themaggies.co.uk.
This year Bauer Media have two magazines in the running for the award – Q magazine with its iconic Lily Allen cover in the Celebrity and Entertainment category and Empire’s 20th anniversary issue, guest-edited by Steven Spielberg, in the Specialist and Hobbies category.
Speaking on the nomination, Paul Rees, Q’s Editor-in-Chief commented:
"The challenge we faced with the Lily Allen cover was this: to make someone who was by no means a core artist for the magazine's readership immediately seem part of its furniture and create a genuine talking point around a pop star who is hardly under-exposed. Cue the panthers. It not only succeeded on both levels – it is one of the year's best selling issues, no Q cover has attracted more PR coverage – but also has quickly become a defining image for both Q and Lily herself."
On hearing the news, Empire’s Mark Dinning said:
“The cover for our 20th Birthday Issue was obviously of incredible importance to us – celebrating as it was our entire history. But that wasn’t the most terrifying part. That would be that the issue’s guest-editor, Steven Spielberg, had final approval on it. Truly hands-on from us first pitching the guest-edit idea to him a year before the issue came out, he asked for us to mock up a number of options for him to look at and then to fly over and show them to him at his office on the set of his new movie, Tintin.
"We brought in celebrated artists to work on fonts, shot half of Hollywood in various poses celebrating their most iconic roles and lined up a succession of world exclusive first looks at some massive blockbusters, all for different cover options.
"Ultimately, though, this was the one he liked best, a simple but hugely effective design done by Empire’s Art Director, Martin Barry. ‘I love it,’ said Spielberg the instant he saw it. ‘It really pops!’ As always, the great man was right. The issue became our biggest selling in eight years...”
Voting closes on 12 October 2009.
www.themaggies.co.uk
